
wkW \ A l^ 



CiJEmiGHT DEPOSIT. 



Sermons in Miniature 
for Meditation 



BY 

Rev. Henry E. O'KeefFe, C.S.P. 



"GH>e glory to the Lord, for He is good: for His mercy 
endureth forever Who shaU declare the powers of the 
Lord? Who shall set forth all His praises ?" 

Psalm cv. 1, 2. 



New York 

THE PAULIST PRESS 

I20 West 6oth Street 

1919 






Copyright, 1919, by •' The Missionary Society of 

St. Paul the Apostle in the State 

OF New York " 



NOy 15 1919 



©CI.A53()795 



LC Control Number 




tmp96 028018 



IPetmissu Supcrforum 

THOMAS F. BURKE, C.S.P., 

Superior-General 



mm ©bstat 

ARTHUR J. SCANLAN, S.T.D., 
Censor Librorum 



ITmptimatur 

•J- PATRICK J. HAYES, 

Archbishop of Ne'w York 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Hopes for the New Year . 1 

It Is Expedient to You That I Go , . . . 10 

The Pearl Merchant 14 

The Lost Sheep 16 

The Indwelling Holy Spirit 19 

The Olive Tree . 22 

We Have Toiled All the Night . ... 25 

Unto Whomsoever Mu,ch is Given .... 28 

A New Sheen on an Old Coin 31 

The Two Sons 37 

The Censoriousness of the Righteous . . 39 

At the Funeral of a Little Child .... 42 

The Force of Habit 44 

The Three Wise Men ........ 47 

The Fewness of the Elect 49 

The Grain of Wheat 53 

Jesus AND THE Plain People ...... 57 

The Star in the East 60 

St. Margaret of Cortona, the Penitent . . 65 

A Great Sign Appeared in the Heavens . . 68 

The New Thanksgiving 71 

The Curse on the Fig Tree . 77 

The Net Cast Into the Sea ...... 82 

Woman in Public Life 85 

Jews and Irish 91 

The Communion of Saints 97 

V 



vi CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Moral Beauty of the Cross .... 106 

The Sin of David Ill 

Christ's Resurrection and Our Immortal 

Bodies 113 

The Woman That Was Healed 126 

Our Blessed Lady 136 

On the Road to Bethania 138 

Spiritual Advantages 140 

Render to Caesar . 142 

The Peace of Our Lord 145 

The Mustard Seed 148 

The Cry in the Synagogue 151 

The Mediator 160 

The Hidden Secrets of the Spirit . . . 163 
The Leaven in the Lump of Meal .... 168 
The Divine Vocation of the American Re- 
public 177 

Our Redeemer's Loneliness 184 

The Modern Woman and Cloistered Nuns . 192 

St. Agnes, a Type and Contrast 198 

Love, Marriage and Divorce 207 

All Kinds of Fishes 215 

At the Death of a Great American . . . 218 

The Pearl of Great Price 221 

As the Hart Panteth 223 

The Reasonableness of the Incarnation . 225 

The Parable of the Patched Garment . . 227 

An Ideal for Human Imitation 229 

The Nativity 231 

The Shadow of Death 233 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE FOR 
MEDITATION 



HOPES FOR THE NEW YEAR. 

"And after eight days were accomplished, that the 
child should be circumcised/J — Luke iu 21, 

Today, New Year's Day, the Church com- 
memorates the Feast of Our Lord's Circumcision.' 
Today we are reminded that the Great God (exist- 
ing far beyond the confines of His material crea- 
tion) has not only wrapped His divinity in the form 
of a helpless infant, but He has submitted to the 
humiliation of an ancient rite which had no direct 
meaning in His life. 

In this act of divine condescension we may trace 
a threefold view of thought: 

The submission of Christ to an ancient prac- 
tise enjoins upon us the duty of accepting the fol- 
lowing truth: that, under His guidance, we may 
use the past to construct the future. 

This is an eminently fitting thought on New 
Year's Day — the practical lesson, that the dead 
year, which has just passed, has its uses in teach- 



2 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

ing us how to construct the circumstances of the 
year which is to come. 

In the great plaza before St. Peter's at Rome 
there stands an ancient Egyptian obelisk. To the 
superficial tourist, it would seem out of place and 
historic proportion, but to the acute observer it 
would symbolize the portentous fact that the Cath- 
olic Church has consummated and perfected all 
the religious civilizations of the past with .the re- 
ligion of the present and the future. Christ gave 
emphatic sanction to this principle of continuity in 
His words : " I came not to destroy the law but to 
fulfill it." Although in Our Lord's time the Jewish 
law of circumcision separated the Jew from the 
other nations, its original foundation was with 
the ancient Egyptians as well as with the Jews. 
Thus the law of Moses and Abraham concerning 
circumcision was an old rite with a new and figura- 
tive significance : " The wise householder bringeth 
forth treasures new and old." 

The circumcision which was " a covenant in the 
flesh " became the ancient type of a future reality 
— the shadow of a coming substance — the con- 
secration of the flesh, through the mystery of the 
Incarnation. 

Thus does God use the raw material of the 
human to further the divine purpose of the Divine 
Will. We can, reverently, appreciate the histori- 
cal fact that God uses even the human elements in 
the Church as means whereby the divine design 
may be manifested in His dealings with the world. 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 3 

The old and the human under His beneficent in- 
spiration become the new and the divine : " Behold 
I will make all things new." 

So we are not shocked but filled with admiration 
when we notice how Christianity has, naturally, 
made use of ancient symbols, vestments, rites, art, 
traditions, government, customs and expressions 
lof thought to serve its own divine purpose. The 
iGreek terminology is used concerning Our Lord's 
Divine Nature in the Nicene Creed and in some gf 
the writings of St. John. St. Paul wrests to the 
service of Christ's religion modes of reasoning 
familiar in the schools of the Rabbis. Christian 
philosophers and theologians, like St, Thomas 
Aquinas, have framed arguments, according to 
methods traceable in the works of the ancient mas- 
ters of Greek and Roman thought. 

This does not prove that the religion of Christ is 
a heterogeneous mass, made up of the elements of 
older religions, but rather shows a perfect system 
which has risen upon the ruins of the past and 
providentially, selected and transfigured all that 
was good and best. It is in God's design that it 
should be so and over it all breathes His Holy 
Spirit., 

Our Lord accentuated this historical truth in 
submitting to the ancient .ceremony of circum- 
cision. 

This is a lesson for New Year's Day — ^that out 
of the deeds of the past we can learn to build a new 
and better life for the future. 



4 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

Our Saviour's circumcision suggests another 
train of meditation. 

He was humbly obedient to an ordinance which, 
apparently, for Him had lost its meaning and pur- 
pose. Another striking illustration of this abject 
obedience to a law which had no personal refer- 
ence, was the submission of the Blessed Virgin to 
the ceremony of purification. The Holy One did 
not suffer her to see corruption and there was, in- 
deed, no stigma upon her maternal dignity, yet she 
stood in the temple with all the other women and 
made, as they did, her offering of turtle doves 
.to the priest. 

The ceremonies of purification and circumcision 
remind us, somewhat, of our law of infant Bap- 
tism, except, indeed, that the latter has a very defi- 
nite purpose. Circumcision was an initial rite by 
which the young Israelite made covenant with the 
God of his forefathers to keep the whole Mosaic 
law, moral and civil. 

In Christian Baptism the child promises to obey 
the whole law of Christ as expressed by the Church. 

The point, however, under more direct con- 
sideration now is the profound obedience of Our 
Lord and His Mother to an ancient and pious cus- 
tom which had no special significance for them. 
In their humility we see a complete reversal of the 
ways of the whole world. 

We needs must have reasons for our acts of 
obedience, else we will not obey. How narrow and 
foolish this seems when we realize, that compara- 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 5 

tively few have the intelligence to grasp the full 
significance and scope of many laws. This is 
especially true of the laws of the Church which are 
sometimes entirely spiritual and subtle in their ap- 
plication. From Our Lord's example of the cir- 
cumcision we should be constrained to obey, even 
>vhen we do not see the reasons. This is reason- 
able, if we regard the Church as the faithful ex- 
ponent of Christ's Will. 

Yet this bright example of our Redeemer's obedi- 
ence was only part of the economy of His atone- 
ment and propitiation on the Cross. Is not the 
sublime mystery one supreme act of obedience? 

O Saviour of my soul, teach me the blessedness 
of perfect and humble obedience! Teach me to 
suppress the silly pride which has made me value 
but lightly the holy virtue of obedience ! On this, 
the first day of the New Year, I form the resolu- 
tion to be simple, humble and obedient to Thy 
law in the least things of my life — obedient to Thy 
law in struggling with my own wickedness and 
obedient to Thy law in every relationship with my 
neighbor. O, what a lesson of moral strength is 
contained in Our Lord's submission to the law of 
circumcision ! 

But there is a more startling thought to be gath- 
ered from the mystery of today's Feast. 

He Who was everlasting purity underwent the 
humiliation and pain of a ceremony which implies 
the sense of shame that over-shadows our fallen 
nature. This was done that we might be persuaded 



6 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

of the necessity of that spiritual circumcision — the 
destruction of inordinate desire — which was pre- 
figured by the circumcision of the flesh. 

Indeed, the ancient dispensation taught a moral 
as well as a literal circumcision. There was the 
circumcision of the spirit and the mind : " Cir- 
cumcise, therefore, the foreskin of your heart and 
stiffen your neck no more." "The Lord, thy God, 
will circumcise thy heart and the heart of thy 
seed: that thou mayest love the Lord, thy God, 
with all thy heart and with all thy soul, that thou 
mayest live." 

Beside the circumcision of the heart there is the 
circumcision of the lips. When Moses wished to 
tell of the defect in his words or utterance he " an- 
swered before the Lord: Behold the children of 
Israel do not hearken to me ; and how shall Sharar 
hear me, especially as I am of uncircumcised lips?" 

Again, there is the circumcision of the ears: 
" To whom shall I speak and to whom shall I 
testify that he may hear? Behold, their ears are 
uncircumcised and they cannot hear: Behold, the 
word of the Lord is become unto them a reproach: 
and they will not receive it." 

For us of the new dispensation the true circum- 
cision is in modifying the passions of the heart. 
In his irresistible manner St. Paul makes this clear 
to the Romans and others, but his teaching is 
especially applicable to us all : " For it is not he is 
a Jew that is so outwardly; nor is that circum- 
cision which is outwardly in the flesh." 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 7 

"For we are the circumcision, who in spirit 
serve God; and glory in Christ Jesus, not having 
confidence in the flesh." 

"Behold, I, Paul tell you, that, if you be cir- 
cumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing." 

" For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision avail- 
eth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new 
creature. And whosoever shall follow this 
rule, peace on them, and mercy, and upon the 
Israel of God. From henceforth, let no man be 
troublesome to me; for I bear the marks of the 
Lord Jesus in my body. The grace of Our Lord 
Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brethren. Amen." 

For the next twelve months, indeed for life, we 
should resolve to be on the alert to circumcise the 
heart, the lips and the ears. 

The circumcision of the heart would mean 
to destroy those vicious tendencies which lie like 
wild beasts in the nooks and caverns of the heart; 
to eradicate those wayward impulses which are 
beginnings of moral evil; to regulate the emotions 
of the heart so that it may love only the things 
that are licit, pure, noble, fair. There are inordi- 
nate affections which if not controlled by the grace 
of God put a Ijlight upon the heart and impede 
those interior operations of the Holy Spirit. The 
human heart, with all subtle sentiment, plays such 
a large part in the structure and formation of char- 
acter that it needs spiritual circumcision, morti- 
fication, pain, and humiliation. Every love of the 
iheart should be directed to its Supreme Object, 



8 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

God the Creator, and creatures should be loved 
only in God the Creator of human and divine love. 

Then, we have the urgent need of circum- 
cision of the lips. We have the lack of restraint 
over speech which is almost a universal defect. O, 
who can measure the havoc and disaster wrought 
by the uncharitable and unruly tongue! The im- 
morality of a lie is in the using the organ of speech 
to falsely reflect that which is truly in the mind. 
What shall we say of those who use the tongue to 
do the devil's work by sowing broadcast in the 
minds and imaginations of men the seeds of sin? 
What shall we say of him who has acquired fluency 
and grace in his ignoble talent of telling unseemly 
stories? There is the pollution of the lips. On this 
Jjlessed New Year's Day, we shall determine to 
purify, to circumcise our lips; to avoid c§ilumny, 
detraction, cursing, swearing, scandal-monging, 
iying and obscenity of speech. Then will this 
golden gift of speech, which, in a manner, differen- 
itiates us from the brute animal, become like the 
voice of the orator in the pulpit and the song of 
the bird in the woods, an instrument telling of the 
glory of God, 

Finally, we shall consider circumcision of 
the ears: In Extreme Unction, when the dying 
members of the body are being anointed, the ears 
are not forgotten, so that God may forgive the sins 
committed through the sense of hearing. There 
are those who have a weakness for listening, for 
discovering the unwholesome imperfections in the 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 9 

lives of others. The coyote on the Western prairies 
can detect the dead cattle for miles. The hyena 
skulks around the church yards by night and with 
his snout uproots the carcasses of the dead. He 
thrives best on that which is unwholesome and has 
,an instinct for finding it. 

There are persons who have a morbid instinct 
for finding out and listening to things abnormal 
and scandalous. Through hearing, come illicit 
imaginations and thoughts and from these come 
desires and from desires arise execution in deeds. 
This is the systematic process of sin, through the 
sense of hearing. The resolution to be formed 
from this is obvious. 

Let us make a brief nummary of all that has been 
said. 

After the manner of Him Who was circum- 
cised, we will make use of the ancient and the past 
to construct the new and the future life. 

In accordance with Our Lord's obedience to 
the law of circumcision, we will resolve, on this 
New Year's Day, to be obedient to His law as re- 
flected in His Church, even when this law seems 
to have no meaning or purpose for us. 

We will perfbrm the spiritual circumcision of 
the heart, the lips and the ears. 



IT IS EXPEDIENT TO YOU THAT I GO. 

" But because I have spoken these things to you 
sorrow hath filled your heart. But I tell you the truth : 
it is expedient to you that I go: for if I go not the 
Paraclete will not come to you." — John xvL 6, 7. 

Touched by the depression which came to His 
disciples the Lord Christ assures them that His 
very departure from this earth would mean a 
fuller dispensation of the Holy Spirit in their souls. 
The fullness of time had come for Him to with- 
draw His sacred Humanity from their presence. 
The charm of His personality had done much to 
attract and comfort them, and now when it would 
seem that their hearts beat high with expectation 
of success for the propagation of His gospel, He 
suddenly flings a shadow of gloom over the sit- 
uation by intimating that He must leave them for 
their own good. They were men of flesh and blood 
as we are, and they became sincerely and fervently 
attached to Him although they did not understand 
all that He said and did. " I have yet many things 
to say to you but you cannot bear them now.'* Ex- 
cept in rare cases divine teaching is gradual. It was 
said by a distinguished neo-pagan that perfection 
comes through a series of disgusts. To the believer 
in Christ everything is fair and excellent in itself 

10 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 11 

and spiritual perfection comes rather through a 
series of abstinences and reserves. It is a truism 
among spiritual writers that in proportion to our 
detachment — from things even licit, we gain 
greater freedom for the acquisition of grace and 
strengthening of human character. " It is expedient 
to you that I go'* — as if the good Lord meant to 
say — you must not rely merely on the human. The 
human makes an excellent foundation but the 
superstructure must be more than natural. He 
who hopes to override a critical temptation by 
trusting to his own natural resources of tempera- 
ment, character, environment, has not yet learned 
from a life of sin, how accidentally unsound and 
weak nature really is. The burden of the words 
of Jesus would be — put not your whole trust in 
human comfort, affection or strength. Do not even 
rest your religion upon the beauty of My Humanity 
for this may only provoke the emotion of the heart, 
and the heart is but one portion of the being and 
perhaps the most dangerous. " It is expedient to 
you that I go." An act of religion is not merely sen- 
timent — it is likewise a performance of the mind 
and the will. Women and children are naturally 
virtuous and are drawn to religion, as if by in- 
stinct, nor can they always tell the reasons. But 
such religion will not submit to the severe test of a 
violent temptation, if the subject be one who has 
weakened the will by repeated acts of sin, or one 
who is temperamentally passionate and has the 
wealth at hand to gratify the whims and caprices 



12 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

of the sentient body. It would seem the more 
important exercise of religion is founded in the 
will. Keeping the mind clear from unseemly 
images we teach it to see truth in purer light. 
Christ is the everlasting Truth and His Church is 
the living embodiment of Him in modern life. Our 
doubts against faith arise partially from ignorance 
and partially from our tendency to measure the 
spiritual by the human. Notice the promise of Our 
Blessed Lord was that the Paraclete would come 
after His absence. "It is expedient to you that I 
go, for if I go not the Paraclete will not come to 
you." Not that He would deprecate the human for 
men are drawn to God through the cords of Adam, 
but would make it the basis and not the whole 
structure of spiritual life, just as nature is the 
condition without which grace does not exist. In 
plain words the text implies this simple truth — 
that our faith must strike deeper and soar higher 
than the merely human. Religion is not to be 
sought merely for its beauty or exercised merely to 
acquire the favor of men or for the good example 
it may manifest to the citizens of a town or the 
members of a household. The Church is very wise 
in consecrating light, music, poetry, painting, 
drama, architecture, ritual, dogma, but these are 
human means to a divine end; that of the union 
of the will of man with the Will of God— "Thy 
Will," says Dante, the sublime peer of Catholic 
poets, "is our peace." But all these devices are 
human and indirect agencies and avail only re- 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 13 

motely in the everlasting struggle between flesh 
and spirit. Moreover let us regard every denial 
of human delight, friendship, affection, beauty, 
health, strength, wealth as being expedient and 
straight out of the skies that the Paraclete may de- 
scend upon us. The law of detachment from the 
human is but the wise principle of asceticism which 
would save the soul from having its wings clipped 
and its horizon narrowed. With most men an act 
of religion is oftentimes so human as to be super- 
ficial, as with women it can be so human as to be 
merely emotional. Such religiousness does not 
stand the test of the stress of temptation in modern 
business methods any more than it will stay the 
impulsive heart from pouring out its wayward sen- 
timent upon a forbidden object. 

So must our spirituality therefore be practical 
and deep down below the human to the realm of 
the spirit. Then if reputation or power or money 
or love be suddenly withdrawn from us, as the 
Form of Christ was taken from His follow^ers, we, 
like them, shall realize the promise that He would 
send the Paraclete — a word which signifies the 
everlasting help of God: "It is expedient to you 
that I go for if I go not the Paraclete will not come 
to you." 



THE PEARL MERCHANT. 

" Again the kingdom of heaven is like to a merchant 
seeking good pearls. Who when he had found one 
pearl of great price, went his way and sold all that 
he had and bought it." — Matt, xiii, 45, 46. 

The pearl merchant in the parable is a seeker 
after the one thing necessary, the true peace, the 
everlasting wisdom. " Again the kingdom of 
heaven is like to a merchant seeking good pearls." 
His quest is definite. Its ultimate effect must be 
for him appropriation, possession. In the begin- 
ning he knew not that it was one pearl that he was 
seeking — that there was one good that could put 
to rest his aspirations. At first he seeks " good 
pearls," but one pearl of great price is the result 
of all his labor. Spiritual experience — divine 
teaching is almost always gradual. 

It will add more color to the beauty of the 
parable, if we remember how in ancient days fabu- 
lous sums were given for the possession of one 
pearl of singular perfection. We gather more 
easily from this knowledge the force of the story 
that Cleopatra drank pearls dissolved in vinegar at 
the banquet which she gave to Marc Antony. The 
tale may not be true, but it must have been told to 
denote the queen's strenuous desire to capture the 

14 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 15 

great Roman. Even to this day we can bear the 
excitement and exaggeration of being told that 
some gentle lady was seen at a social function 
and that she wore ropes of pearls about her neck. 
There is much curious erudition about pearls. The 
superstitions concerning their formation are in- 
teresting to those who have a taste for such learn- 
ing. With us it is necessary to be seriously practi- 
cal and to keep in mind that the pearl in the para- 
ble was one of great price and of very superior 
quality. If we are permitted to picture it to our- 
selves we may believe that it was smooth and 
round, with no yellow streaks in it to diminish its 
value but pellucid like the traditional celestial dew. 
For our merchant sought and bought only good 
pearls. He was a man of high and noble ideals 
even before he found the one pearl for which he 
sold all. 

Our merchant must be represented as a searcher 
after light, a lover of truth, a student of the beau- 
tiful in nature or in art, a soul groping after that 
centre of composure and peace. There are many 
ingenious interpretations of the parable — one sim- 
ple one will do for us. The pearl is the kingdom of 
God within the soul of man. For the most part 
all the interpretations resolve themselves into 
that. 



THE LOST SHEEP. 

"And He spake to them this parable, saying: What 
man of you who hath a hundred sheep and loseth one 
of them, doth not leave the ninety-nine in the desert 
and go after that which was lost until he find it?** 
— Luke XV. 3, 4, 

The parable of the lost sheep is a picture of 
man's helplessness when separated from God. The 
image of a sheep dependent upon its shepherd por- 
trays the deep truth of man*s need for God, The 
sheep out of the fold is a striking type of abject 
helplessness. Wandering perhaps in quest of 
richer pasture it loses itself — then the night comes 
on and the frightened animal gives utterance to 
its fear with a cry for help. It cannot help itself. 
It cannot know that with each step it is advancing 
deeper into the desert. It cannot tell for whom it 
is bleating. Its instinct urges it to seek the other 
sheep, whereas in this predicament only the shep- 
herd can be of service. 

So is it with the history of man's soul. En- 
tangled in the mazes of evil there must come to 
him a better moment when he knows that of 
himself he is helpless. He may not realize this 
at once. He may for a time blindly seek aid 
from men — as the blind instinct of the lost 

16 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 17 

sheep sought the sheep and not the shepherd 
— but at last he awakens to the consciousness that 
when lost in the wilderness there is no relief found 
in himself or men, but in God. Now, if man's help 
is from God alone, man becomes an occasion of 
God's accidental glory, and in a restricted sense we 
can say that God needs man. By the divine right 
of ownership we are the sheep of His fold. He will 
not — He cannot of His own nature let us perish if 
we cry for help — no more than the good shepherd 
could endure the plight of the sheep straying upon 
the moors. Although the calm, impassable being 
of God cannot be perturbed, there is in Him, never- 
theless, something analogous to the human pas- 
sions of grief and pity. The feeling of compassion 
and possession in God is represented in the shep- 
herd seeking out his lost sheep. 

Man seeks God naturally, but nature having 
been corrupted, it is difficult for him to direct His 
mind and will to God. This arises not from malice, 
but from weakness or thoughtlessness. We are 
wont to regard the sheep as a type of innocence 
and stupidity. How often is it true with man that 
he wanders away from the fold of the Church and 
the vigilance of the Shepherd, Christ, without 
malice but with indifference or ignorance. Not in 
scorn or rebellion, but in thoughtlessness he has 
gradually felt himself waxing out of temper with 
ecclesiastical discipline, with the restraint of the 
moral law and with the requirements of the Sacra- 
ments. It was not so with him in the beginning. 



18 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

but he has wandered on and on and alone and a 
shock has come — he has committed a grave sin — 
and in his weakness and blindness he cries for 
help. 

May the Great Shepherd grant us the grace to 
learn these three lessons from the parable of the 
lost sheep: first, that we need Him to keep us 
within the fold; second, that He needs us to keep 
His fold complete; and third that we need Him 
when we have strayed away from the fold. 



THE INDWELLING HOLY SPIRIT. 

"At that time Jesus said to His disciples: When the 
Paraclete cometh, Whom I will send to you from the 
Father, He will give testimony of Me." — John xv. 26, 

The Ascension of Christ, the Son of God, mani- 
fested more fully the reign of God, the Holy Ghost, 
within the souls of men. This is the meaning of 
the text above. When the light of Christ flashed 
upon the world, the dispensation of God the Father 
was not destroyed, but overshadowed. So, too, 
when the newer testament of God the Son was 
sealed there began the more intimate guidance of 
the Holy Spirit. 

Although all three Persons of the Blessed Trinity 
have a share in our sanctification, to the Holy 
Spirit however is this great work more directly 
referred. Yet the gifts of the Holy Spirit have been 
sent us by Christ and this is what is meant by the 
words: "Whom I will send to you." Moreover, 
the gift of the Spirit was sent to us " from the 
Father " — " Whom I will send to you from the 
•Father " — so that the impress of the Trinity is 
branded upon our souls. In our mysterious being 
is faintly reflected the mystery that God the 
Father is related to God the Holy Ghost, as subject 

19 



20 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

to object — the relationship between each express- 
ing God, the Son. 

But this is a weak description of a transcenden- 
tal truth, and we of untutored minds prefer to 
acquire the merit of a reasonable act of simple 
faith and leave to the wise and holy the discussion 
of the mysteries of the Divine Being. 

This much, however, of the text is applicable 
to us : " The Spirit of Truth, Who proceedeth from 
the Father, He will give testimony of Me." The 
Holy Spirit is the source of truth, internal and ex- 
ternal. Internally in the individual soul redeemed 
by Christ, and externally in the living Church 
organized by Christ. It is of grave import that we 
realize this fact. The birth, growth and perfection 
of the spiritual life has for its principle the agency 
of the Holy Spirit. 

" He will give testimony of Me." Through the 
grace of the Holy Spirit we arrive at the over- 
whelming evidence of the Incarnation and of all 
the truths which radiate from this central truth. 
But if this " testimony ** concerns only the interior 
life the exterior proofs of the divinity of Christ's 
Church are equally unassailable. This knowledge, 
beginning in reason, ends in an operation which 
is above reason, and the primary agent of the act is 
the Holy Spirit. Thus is the Holy Spirit "the 
Spirit of Truth" within and without. 

Sin, alone, in its various forms, greater or less, 
is the one force destructive of the influence of the 
Holy Spirit in the soul. All the instruments which 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 21 

facilitate the interior workings of the Holy Spirit 
are to be sought for. They are found within and 
without — within through the habit of prayer — 
without through the system of the Sacraments. 

A faithful obedience to the instincts of the Holy 
Spirit within, measured and balanced by the 
authority and teaching power of Chirst's Church 
without, should be the ideal state towards which 
the Christian should strive. 



THE OLIVE TREE. 

" I say then : * Hath God cast away His people? God 
forbid. For I am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham, 
of the tribe of Benjamin." — Eom. xv, 1, 

In reading the eleventh chapter of St. Paul's 
Epistle to the Romans it would seem that he inti- 
mates that the Jews as a whole will one day re- 
habilitate themselves in the Kingdom of Israel. 
This ending for such a royal race is more accept- 
able than the belief that they must ever wander 
over the face of the earth out of atonement for 
their sin against the light. 

It is striking to read St. Paul's words in such a 
light. He asks : " Hath God cast away His peo- 
ple?" And answers: "God forbid." "God hath 
not cast away His people, which He foreknew." 

In a manner and historically the Jews are God's 
people more than we are, for we the Gentiles are 
only the wild branches grafted in on the original 
olive-tree. If they have been cursed with the 
" spirit of insensibility " and darkness, these will 
be only " in some time, His good time," and the 
definite hour will come when " ungodliness shall be 
turned away from Jacob." Is it in God's provi- 
dence that the natural branches will be grafted 

22 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 23 

lagain into their own olive-tree? ** For if thou wert 
cut out of the "wild olive-tree, which is natural to 
thee and contrary to nature, how much more shall 
they that are the natural branches, be grafted into 
their own olive-tree? " Perhaps this modern 
movement termed Zionism is the far off beginning 
of this returning. Perhaps the lovers of Zion who 
are working for its reconstruction are building bet- 
ter than they know. For the true Jew the home of 
,his heart is in Palestine. We have just had an- 
other Zionist Congress in Europe. It is the last 
expression of the most modern phase of the move- 
ment of Zionism. The previous Congresses pro- 
voked from the world pity, scorn and even laugh- 
ter, but now at last the movement has received re- 
spectful consideration. Doubtless among the Jews 
themselves there are many shades of belief con- 
cerning Zionism. 

What then is the Zionist idea? " The Lord thy 
God will bring back again thy captivity and will 
have mercy on thee and gather thee again out of 
all the nations into which He scattered thee be- 
fore." From the days of the Babylonian captivity 
to this very hour, the Jews have hoped and dreamed 
of taking up their national history at the point 
where they left off in the Holy City of Jerusalem. 
The inspired visions of the Hebrew prophets, the 
wail of the harpists in their exile, the sincerest 
music in the sublimest psalms are touched with 
this golden desire. 

" And so all Israel should be saved as it is writ- 



24 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

ten: There shall come out of Zion, He that shall 
deliver and shall turn ungodliness from Jacob." 
All down through history has the Jew kept within 
his heart this high hope. He has gone through 
iire and water for his faith and only at the end of 
the last century, when heterodox or rationalistic 
Judaism began to violently assert itself, that the 
;words Zion and Palestine were erased from the re- 
form prayer-book of the Jewish ritual. This was 
unfortunate, for with the general obliteration of 
Jewish tradition there came necessarily the laxity 
of Jewish faith and a more ruthless interpretation 
of the Mosaic Code. 

Yet in spite of centuries of persecution there is 
still alive the small flame that may relight " the 
altars " that have been " dug down," and the Hand 
not shortened may pile up the stones of the tem- 
ple of Jerusalem — those stones that have not been 
left one upon another. 

Ah! were it foolish to hail this new movement 
of Zionism, as an unconscious awakening of grace 
to the realization of the mission of God*s chosen 
people? Great mercies may be in store for this 
race which has suffered so much. May the God of 
Jacob grant them! 

" If thou be driven as far as the poles of heaven, 
the Lord thy God will fetch thee back from thence. 
And will take thee to Himself and bring thee into 
the land which thy fathers possessed and thou 
shalt possess it; and blessing thee He will make 
thee more numerous than were thy fathers." 



WE HAVE TOILED ALL THE NIGHT. 

** And Simon answering said to Him: Master, we 
have toiled all the night and taken nothing, but at Thy 
command I will let down the net." — Luke v, 5. 

It is the one critical act of obedience to the 
divine voice of faith which lends merit to all our 
spiritual exercises. Entire willingness to accept 
and perform that which is inspired by the motions 
of grace is the end of a life of perfection. " We 
have toiled all the night." A paraphrase of this 
text would be that we are working in the dark until 
we recognize the reasonableness of an act of faith 
and are anxious to make it, while we reverence 
the authority of the one who demands it. "But 
at Thy word I will let down the net." This was 
not an act of blind but of reasonable obedience and 
confidence in the authority and power of the Mas- 
ter Who suggested it. The Church is the authentic 
reflection oi Christ's mind — subservience to her is 
licit and entirely gratifying to the intellect when 
we perceive the reasons for accepting her authority. 
Every act of faith is built upon reason. That which 
we are pleased to call blind faith is implicitly con- 
sonant with the dictates of reason since the basis 
of the operation is merely the acceptance of a 
3tatement from one who has authority to teach. 

25 



26 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

This state of mind underlies all the ordinary per- 
formances of daily life. We likewise arrive at the 
truths of science on the presumption that the utter- 
ances of scientists are always veracious. Alas! 
this is not always so. It is very distressing for 
earnest men to meet with modern teachers who 
throw out unwarrantable propositions (which 
seemingly affect religion) and abruptly withdraw 
them without apologies to religion or even a slender 
explanation for unbecoming misbehavior. 

In the act of Christian belief nothing is required 
but that which is essentially reasonable. Heart 
and intellect are not contracted but immeasurably 
expanded. To run in the way of the Command- 
ments adds brighter light to the mind and greater 
width to the heart. 

"We have toiled all the night." In special trials 
of faith the predominant virtue is patience. Even 
in the more intimate things of religion sweetness 
and light are oftentimes withdrawn. Our Com- 
munions may be dry and void of all sensible de- 
light, the mysteries of faith more obstruse and, in- 
deed, all our devotional exercises lacking in com- 
fort, but there is more merit to be gained in dark- 
ness and aridity than there is in a sunny, equable 
condition of soul. 

Confidence in times of desolation of spirit brings 
its own reward. For the most part the bidding to 
lower the net into the sea does not come until 
we have reached the shore after a night of toiling 
in the storm. We treat temptations against faith 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 27 

as we dismiss unlawful thoughts. If we have not 
the mental ability to investigate the claims of faith 
let us, at least, cultivate the virtues of obeying 
that constituted authority which has the divine 
and human right to impose upon us the obligations 
of faith — " at Thy word I will let down the net." 



UNTO WHOMSOEVER MUCH IS GIVEN. 

" And unto whomsover much is given, of him much 
shall be required." — Luke xii. 48. 

There is a charge against us that in spite of the 
severe discipline of the Church we are no bet- 
ter and perhaps less respectable than others 
who have no supernatural helps to virtue. 
Although men sometimes judge only externally, 
there is nevertheless something in this objection. 
Briefly stated, the answer to it is this: All the 
helps to virtue which the Church extends to us for 
use can through ignorance be abused and even 
wrongly used as substitutes for active individual 
exertion. Strangers are disgusted when they find 
us partaking of the Sacraments and attending Holy 
Mass and then slipping back again into our old 
habits of dishonesty or intemperance. Men err 
when they believe natural vigilance is enough to 
conquer sin, and they err perhaps quite as much 
when they forget that the instruments of grace 
were given not to destroy personal effort but to 
develop it. Of what use is the sacrament of Pen- 
ance if we do not in union with it exercise stren- 
uous personal exertion in eradicating an inveterate 
habit? 

28 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 29 

We are dejected at the frequency of our falls 
into impurity even after many fervent Com- 
munions, but the reason for it is because we have 
not yet learned that along with the action of the 
Blessed Sacrament upon our souls must go the ex- 
ercise of a thousand and one little natural care- 
fulnesses, without which chastity can never be se- 
cure. It is not faith but gross superstition which 
would prompt a man to have blessed a house which 
was bought with money acquired dishonestly in 
business or politics. This is to make one of the 
beautiful ordinances of the Church an anodyne to 
soothe a sinful or erroneous conscience. The pure 
heart and active will must operate in conjunction 
with the means of grace. The supernatural sup- 
poses the natural and supplies whatever is defec- 
tive in it, but it never excludes individual action on 
the part of the one who receives the supernatural 
aid. 

Faithful church members and weekly communi- 
cants arfe to be blamed for lack of individual effort 
when they do not show in their lives a constant 
and ever-increasing spiritual development. Scof- 
fers strain the meaning of the text. "By their fruits 
ye shall know them.'* The purpose of supernatural 
aid is not to teach us how to escape mortification or 
prayer, but rather to teach us how to endure more 
and to pray more. We must not shrink from that 
effort which is part of our probation and the con- 
dition of merit. To develop a constant spiritual 
growth up towards God is the end for which we 



30 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

must use the fruits of the Incarnation. We must 
not forget that we are not dispensed from our own 
personal share in the struggle of the Atonement 
and in the gift of regeneration. If we shirk the 
duty of personal action we are liable to transform 
our religious helps into substitutes for exertion 
^nd hindrances to virtue. 

Men wonder why they cannot keep the pledge 
from drink, and yet they havie remained away from 
the Sacraments so long that they have not been 
educated in strength of will by them. The sacra- 
mentals are stimulants to devotion, but sometimes 
they can relax personal effort — sometimes they can 
be abused, as when, for example, a man is found 
whose whole religious action seems to concentrate 
itself in the faithful wearing of a pair of scapulars. 
Such instances are not common, but few as they 
are they leave a very harmful impression upon 
those who do not understand that the worth of 
all supernatural aid depends upon the disposition 
and effort of the one receiving it. 



A NEW SHEEN ON AN OLD COIN. 

"What woman having ten groats, if she lose one 
groat doth not light a candle and sweep the house and 
seek diligently until she find it "—Luke xu. 8. 

A Syrian woman lost a piece of silver — a Greek 
drachma — a coin — a groat. She lit a candle, she 
swept the house, she found the groat, she rejoiced. 
Christ in the parable is the woman, the lighted 
candle, Christianity, the lost coin, humanity. A 
hut in Palestine before the days of glass is like 
Christ's dark sepulchre before He rose. If per- 
chance there be a window in it, it is shaded with 
lattice work, it admits but little light. When 
Christ with a candle in His Hand flashed from out 
the sealed tomb. He resurrected humanity. He 
picked it up from the dust as He would a coin, and 
put it in the palm of His Hand. When Christ rose 
from the dead, humanity was like a lost groat 
buried beneath the rushes strewn over the floor of 
an Eastern dwelling place. The resurrection of Christ 
has lifted the problem of immortality from out 
of the dark chambers of the dead, from the heart's 
deepest depression, from the twilight of intellectual 
doubt, into the sunlight of faith. With faith and 
hope and love as a basis it is no longer a matter 

31 



32 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

for speculation, conjecture; it provokes security, 
certainty. 

The hour had come for the solution of a tre- 
mendous question. Sweeping is not done without 
dust. When Christ was thrust down into the 
grave, the world was more unsettled than ever. 
Men were perturbed like grains of dust flying 
through the air from »the sweeping of the Sweeper. 
Their hopes were buried beneath the linen cere- 
ments that shrouded the dead Christ. Long before 
the glimmer and crimson of Christianity's dawn, 
the noblest among Pagans had yearned for life be- 
yond death. Most pathetic literature it is — the 
record of the burning thoughts of those great 
heathens who strove to grapple with the reality 
of living forever! The Sphinx of Egypt spoke 
nothing — immortal life was a riddle — a theory 
colored according to the hue of different minds. 
But the best men in their best moments, or even 
when buried beneath the world's dust felt that, like 
the lost piece of silver, they would be found again 
and ridden of all defilement. Man is not only like 
the Greek drachma; the groat, but also like the 
Roman denarius — Caesar's coin. The piece of silver 
bears the impress of an owl or a tortoise or the head 
of Minerva. According to the theory of evolution, 
man bears the impress of former processes of 
lower life — emblems of dissolution — traces of de- 
cay. Man like the coin is stamped in deeper print 
with the image of a Monarch, the likeness of a 
King, this superscription expressing proof of an- 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 33 

other life, of reinvigoration, revival, victory. It is 
because we bear in our bodies the flesh, the bones, 
muscles, tissue, tendons, joints, and blood of the 
risen Christ, that we shall rise again. Christ's 
Body, stepping forth from the gloom of the 
sepulchre, reflects the fortunes of the body 
of man, its curative triumph, its security from 
disaster's clutches, from the jaws of death. 
The glorified body, once motionless, and cold — ^it 
shall again quiver with quicker fire and truer ex- 
pressiveness; the deliverance of Israel from Baby- 
lon, its freedom from Egyptian bondage. "And 
when I had seen Him I fell at His feet as dead. And 
He laid His right hand upon me, saying : * Fear not, 
I am the first and the last, and alive and was dead, 
and behold I am living forever and ever.' " 

Christ is a new species, but He collects all the 
lower species into one. The destiny of our bodies 
is included in the history of His — from the in- 
organic to the vegetative, from the vegetable to 
the animal, from the animal to the rational, up to 
the divine. The theory of evolution, if it be true, 
widens out the theory of the Incarnation and 
makes stronger the argument for final Resurrec- 
tion. All nature is a great matrix in gestation — a 
mother laboring in the pain of parturition to give 
issue from her womb, the grave, to a resurrected 
Christ — a risen humanity. To support this por- 
tentous fact — ^by periods of elimination, selection, 
substitution — all nature is deranged — the dust will 
not settle because of the sweeping of the Sweeper. 



34 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

Christianity, the lighted candle, is shedding radi- 
ance and illumines the darkness of the problem. 
The woman, or rather Christ, is the Agent resur- 
recting the buried groat — humanity — from out of 
the rubbish of historical doubt. The science of 
biology and embryology, would seem to hint at the 
truth of the Resurrection of man. 

Human nature is a coin, a piece of moulded metal 
with a specific value, a medium of exchange be- 
tween heaven and earth, the lodestone that resolves 
the mystery of death into the mystery of life. The 
dogma of the Resurrection shone out in the sparkle 
of the first mineral dug from the bowels of the 
earth, it is prophesied in the faintest perfume of 
the earliest flower, in the first cry of the new- 
born, in the first scintillation of thought. Legal 
and historical evidence prove that nature from 
her womb, the grave, delivered a perfect Christ, 
unlike the pagan fable of Minerva full-armed from 
the brain of Jove. A perfect Christ risen in perfec- 
tion is the term of God's act. From God we came, 
to Him through Christ shall our bodies return. We 
shall be burnished bright like coin just newly 
minted. But, when our work is done, we shall 
learn that we were not minted to be merely bits of 
money — but rather the shining coins, those cher- 
ished heirlooms with which the Syrian women 
adorn the braided tresses of their hair. The ulti- 
mate end of the creation of man is not for him to 
be simply an article of commodity, but rather a 
thing of brightness to embellish the beauty of the 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 35 

world. A Christ Who died, yet a Christ Whose 
Body did not submit to the irresistible work- 
ings of death. Whose Body suspended the laws 
of chemical dissolution, assures us of the ever- 
lasting character of the life of the body of man. 
Christ went about the tomb with a lighted candle. 
He revealed its grim secrets. He swept it. He 
did not answer all the difiSculties at once, but He 
imprisoned man's enemy — death. He found the 
coin. He pledged eternal life. " Behold I am alive 
forever more and have the keys of death." 

When the woman found the lost groat, she called 
together her friends and neighbors, or as the Greek 
would have it, her " female friends," better ex- 
pressed in old English by " friendesses " — " neigh- 
boresses." The world of nature is a mother with 
feminine power, and there is special reason why 
she should rejoice at the magnificent import of the 
Resurrection. It was from nature's bosom — the 
mouth of the sepulchre — that there came the birth 
of the history of the Resurrection. The sorrows of 
her travail are past — she rejoices in her conquest 
over anxiety and struggle. Her alleluias reecho 
in the laughter that ripples from water gurgling in 
the deepest recesses of the earth, in the harmony 
of the spheres, in the flutter of a bee's wing, in the 
chemical affinity of a piece of mineral, in the con- 
flict of physical forces static and dynamic, in the 
motions of molecules and atoms in the constitution 
of matter, in the acid and alkali in the sphere of 
chemistry, in the astronomical laws of attraction 



36 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

and repulsion, in the poles both positive and nega- 
tive in the working of electricity. Not to speak of 
the angels, or even of man, all the world of physi- 
cal nature is ever singing : " Alleluia, Alleluia, 
Alleluia." " Rejoice with me, for I have found the 
groat which I had lost." 



THE TWO SONS. 

"What think you? A certain man had two sons 
and coming to the first he said : * Son, go work today 
in my vineyard/ And he answering said : * I will not.' 
But afterward being moved with repentance he went. 
And coming to the other he said in like manner. And 
he answering said: *I go, sir.' And he went not. 
Which of the two did the father's will? They say to 
him the first. Jesus saith to them. Amen I say to 
you that the publicans and the harlots shall go into 
the Kingdom of God before you." — Matt. xxi. 28, 

These words were addressed to that constit- 
uency of Jews which was so self-sufficient that it 
saw not the historical misfortunes coming upon it. 
Although it heard the cry " Harken, oh, Israel," 
nevertheless it did not answer the divine call. Still 
it may not be amiss to say that, although the Jew- 
ish people said " I will go not," the hour of re- 
pentance may yet come, and, pressing forward, 
they may take up once again the golden thread of 
their history. The cry may yet be, " I will go." 

Apart from the historical lesson of the parable 
of the two sons, there is a personal warning which 
may be practically applicable to us. I care not how 
impervious a man may be to religious influences: 
I care not however grave his doubts may be, there 
must come a moment in his career when the voice 

37 



38 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

of a personal God is heard within his spirit. 
Thomas a Kempis has written in his Following of 
Christ that the voice of the Lord ever says, *' Be- 
hold, I have taught the prophets from the begin- 
ning and even now I cease not to speak to all." To 
all humanity the divine voice is ever sounding its 
note of duty, " Son, go work today in my vineyard." 
Each individual, however insignificant his life, is a 
unit in this vast and complex system. There is a 
hidden or manifest purpose in every human life. 
What the work is in the vineyard or how it is to be 
done it is man's bounden mission to determine. 

In the parable of the two sons there are repre- 
sented two types of persons, who meet the Divine 
call. One son is strong and impulsive and swayed 
by his inclinations, whereas his will is still pre- 
dominant and so he conquers nature and enters 
into the vineyard to work. The other son is high- 
minded and emotional and impressed by the 
merely external beauty of virtue, but his will is 
diseased and weak and his natural desires gain the 
ascendency over it, so he says, "I go, sir." "But he 
went not. 



THE CENSORIOUSNESS OF THE RIGHTEOUS. 

" Jesus spoke this parable to some who trusted in 
themselves as just, and despised others." — Luke xviiL 9. 

There are seemingly "just" men who sit in 
judgment on other men and " despise " them. 
There are seemingly men so strong morally that 
they are consumed with passion to destroy the 
morally weak. Having never known a struggle 
themselves they are merciless in dealing with 
others who may be overwhelmed with the fiercest 
struggles. Under the guise of personal piety and 
apparently with a desire to extend Our Saviour's 
kingdom on earth they would cast off those whom 
He specially came to save. It is a strange and sub- 
tle corruption of Our Saviour's teaching — it is the 
refined expression of Phariseeism. 

A Publican praying in the temple may be an 
honest man and nearer to the Mind of Christ than 
he who thanked God that he is " not as the rest of 
men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers as is also this 
Publican." It is a virtue to be relentless in our de- 
nunciation of sin, but it is a vice to ** despise " the 
sinner. How searching are Our Redeemer's words 
concerning sin, but oh! how exquisitely tender is 
He in the treatment of the sinner. 

39 



40 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

Some writer has used the expression : " the bad 
quality of virtue." We know, of course, that the 
statement is contradictory and that virtue can pos- 
sess no bad quality. What the author meant to 
convey was something like this: that virtue can 
become so immoderate and inordinate as to frus- 
trate its own purpose. An exaggerated truth may 
be a malicious lie. The censoriousness of the vir- 
tuous may impede the cause of virtue. The un- 
fortunate woman who passes at night in the 
streets may be " despised '* by her more fortunate 
sister. Yet it adds nothing to the virtue of the 
woman protected by a well-conditioned home to 
" despise " the woman who has sinned. The self- 
complacent man who has never been tempted to 
strong drink may " despise " and be disgusted with 
the drunkard reeling in the streets. Yet the Divine 
Judgment will not be meted out to this weak sin- 
ner in proportion to the self-righteous presumption 
of his stronger brother. What a startling assertion 
is that of Our Lord: "Amen, amen, I say unto 
you, the publicans and the harlots shall go into 
the kingdom before these." 

If before the world we are thought to be in that 
goodly company of the just, we therefore do not 
gain the prerogative to pass judgment and "de- 
spise " others. Many a " just " man is " just '* be- 
cause he has never known the conflict with sin. 
Some of the virtuous have been saved from sin 
by divine grace, education, family, home, ante- 
cedents, temperament, innate refinement. To be 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 41 

truly "just" means that we should be well- 
balanced even in the very passion for righteousness 
in others. Servants of God should look at the 
problem of sin in others as a most complex diflB- 
culty. If they have a sincere spiritual sense, they 
will see that the will of the sinner may be affected 
by myriads of influences — by environment, emo- 
tion, physical impulse, mentality and even by the 
very complexion of his body. There is not a 
" just " man in this whole wide word " just '* 
enough to " despise " the most abandoned degener- 
ate. This is the Mind of Christ expressed in the 
above text : " Jesus spoke this parable to some who 
trusted in themselves as just and despised others." 



AT THE FUNERAL OF A LITTLE CHILD. 

" He was taken away lest wickedness should alter his 
understanding or deceit beguile his soul." — Wisdom 
iv. 11, 

It is faith and hope and love which bid us put 
our fingers to our lips and say not an unseemly 
word in the presence of death, when it is young and 
when it is beautiful. I would not if I could — I 
could not if I would. It is the gracious will of our 
Holy Church that when a comely child such as this 
has fallen asleep in another life he shall be clad as 
befits his age. Likewise that a crown or garland 
of flowers or of aromatic and savory herbs, in 
token of his bodily purity and virginity, shall be 
laid upon him. Then, too, it is usual not to toll 
the bells. If they are rung it must be rather with 
a cheerful and festive sound. " Bless the Lord, all 
ye His chosen ones : keep days of gladness, and give 
praise to Him." 

A finely-strung spiritual creature, such as this, 
now cold in death, could never have survived, if 
the harsh blasts of an unmannerly world had 
visited him too roughly. Therefore He, Who is the 
Resurrection and the Life, took him to His own 
chaste bosom to harbor him from the unwhole- 
some breath of the night — the blight of wickedness. 
" Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in 
the law of the Lord." It was He, gentlest and 

42 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 43 

greatest of all, Who spoke to the holy world of 
childhood as if He yearned to take it to His heart : 
" Suffer little children to come unto Me, for of 
such is the kingdom of heaven." 

What brighter glory in history could come to a 
Christian mother than to place her own offspring 
— the fair fruit of her body — upon the altar of res- 
ignation to the Divine Will? *' Young men and 
maidens, old men and children, let them praise the 
Lord." 

What if our dead little one were, to the eyes of 
this gross and unthinking world, a hyacinthine boy 
of rare promise? What of that? What if to the 
eyes of love he had a face as delicate as cut marble 
and hair like the color of rich grain? What if 
tears would rise and kisses ever come at the mere 
sight of him — what be all these, fame, beauty, love, 
compared to the boom of having rendered back to 
the White Throne a soul as pure at the hour of 
death as when the saving dew of baptism fell upon 
the tender forehead? "He shall receive a blessing 
from the Lord and mercy from God his Saviour, 
for this is the generation of them that seek the 
Lord." 

We are nearer the departed than we can ever 
imagine — ^we are closer still to absent little ones 
who are blessed, without any desert of theirs. In 
a day or so, and through the mere breaking of a 
cloud, we shall be with them forever. '* May the 
name of the Lord be blessed henceforth and for 
evermore." 



THE FORCE OF HABIT. 

"In the Lord I put my trust: how then do you say 
to my soul; Get thee away from hence to the moun- 
tain hke a sparrow? For lo, the wicked have bent 
their bow; they have prepared their arrows in the 
quiver; to shoot in the dark the upright of heart." — 
Psalm X. 2, 3, 

I AM convinced that the reason men so often 
despair in trying to conquer an evil habit is that 
they have never learned the law which underlies 
all acts of the will. A few repetitions of an act 
will sometimes create a habit, whereas many con- 
stant repetitions of opposition against the act are 
necessary to eradicate the habit. As in nature, 
so it would seem in the moral world, it is easier to 
destroy than it is to reconstruct. Many are the 
processes of nature leading up to the first bloom- 
ing of a flower, but an unseemly blast of wind can 
instantly blight it. It is the same law running 
through the realm of the spirit which explains 
why it takes years to conquer a habit which may 
have been contracted in a few months. As habits 
are formed by the repetition of acts, so they are 
uprooted by the same process of acts repeated 
against the habit already formed. 

The mischief is in believing that a mere reso- 
lution or a few moral victories are enough to tri- 

44 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 45 

umph over a long-lived wicked habit. We do not 
lose the gift of perseverance when we realize that 
our failures are not real failures if the intervals 
between them are growing wider. The failures are 
to be expected in the process of uprooting the habit 
— our chief duty is to look to it that the failures 
are less frequent. This is about the only rule to be 
laid down for the regulation of habits. Apart from 
the theory of grace it is a psychological question. 

Different men have different inclinations, and 
the habits which are more easily in accord with 
these inclinations take a much longer time to be 
eradicated. If, on the contrary, the habit was 
formed against inclination, it can more easily be 
got rid of. Lest discouragement come to us in try- 
ing to uproot an evil habit, we should frequently 
make acts of faith in the imperial power of the 
human will. Men are bewildered and overtaken 
with despair when, after some sincere resolution 
to overcome habits of intemperance and sensuality, 
they nevertheless fail. They have forgotten, or 
never realized, this truth, that the act of opposition 
to a habit must be far in excess of those repeated 
acts which created the habit. 

These two evil habits spoken of above imply 
many violations of laws which the ordinary mind 
does not perceive. In the habit of intemperance, 
for instance, those subtle and finely constructed 
organisms both of the mind and nervous system 
have been slowly and perhaps imperceptibly dis- 
turbed. It is quite reasonable, therefore, to sup- 



46 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

pose, according to this inevitable law, that the cure 
is very much more slow than was the disease in 
its formation. The same law holds good in all 
moral acts of the will. If we can grasp this truth 
and apply it when we are struggling with some 
inveterate habit of sin, despair, by the grace of 
God, will never encompass us. 



THE THREE WISE MEN. 

" When Jesus therefore was born in Bethlehem of 
Juda, in the days of King Herod, behold there came 
wise men from the East of Jerusalem, saying: ' Where 
is He that is born King of the Jews? For we have 
seen His star in the East and are come to adore Him.' '* 
—Matt, it 1, 2, 

Three wise men, of those ancient days, who 
knew something of the disposition of the heavens, 
watched by many nights for the star which was to 
herald the coming of Him Who was born King of the 
Jews. They scanned the skies in the secret silence 
of the night, while Herod, the priests and all the 
world slept. It is in watching and in stillness that 
we catch the primeval glimmer of interior light. 
The first impulses of grace may come to us without 
preparation on our part, but they cannot be per- 
ceived except we be on the alert and have com- 
posed ourselves by the habits of prayer and medita- 
tion. Moreover, the wise men went at once. This 
was necessary for as the star came into the system 
of a suddenness, so might it suddenly disappear. 
They therefore were not only watchers in the night, 
but they were constant watchers. There are graces 
freely bestowed which must be jealously watched 
and used else they vanish as subtly as they appear. 

Mark, too, the sacrifice which was provoked by 
the sincerity of their quest for Christ. The jour- 

47 



48 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

ney was circuitous and attended with all the fierce 
dangers which accompany the traveler in the 
Orient. Earnestness, therefore, was a quality char- 
acteristic of these three kingly philosophers. 
Imagination and sentiment may beguile us in the 
beginning of our conversion, but enduring sin- 
cerity and zeal are quite other gifts. Unforseen 
dangers arise and the way towards the new-born 
King becomes not only monotonous, but hazard- 
ous. Special lights and directions are suddenly 
and mysteriously withdrawn and we travel by the 
sheer force of our abiding earnestness. 

Faith follows, in patience and assiduity, the 
early flicker of light in the darkness of the journey 
of life. Christ is not merely the Life and the Light 
but He is the Way. We are the creatures of pro- 
cess. The possession of truth is seen at the end 
of the journey when the ruggedness of the road and 
the darkness of the night have vanished. Progress 
and ownership were inevitable : " And entering 
into the house they found the Child with Mary His 
Mother." 

So, too, must it be a principle with all seekers 
after truth — the habitual state of internal vigi- 
lance, constancy, thoroughness and endurance. In 
these are found the first fruits of adoption, redemp- 
tion and sanctification : " But when the fullness of 
time was come, God sent His Son, made of a 
woman, made under the law; that He might re- 
deem them who were under the law, that we might 
receive the adoption of sons." 



THE FEWNESS OF THE ELECT. 

" For many are called, but few are chosen." — Matt. 
xxii. 1^. 

This is a fearfully solemn statement, issuing 
from the tenderest lips that ever expressed God's 
love for man. It grows in its seriousness when we 
view religiously the awful history of humanity, 
past and present. It is strengthened by such texts 
as, " Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that 
leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it," 
and, " Strive to enter in at the strait gate, for many, 
I say unto you, shall seek to enter in and shall not 
be able," and still again, " Wide is the gate and 
broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and 
many there be who go in thereat." 

These words bear out the historical fact of the 
fewness of the elect; that is, when this great world 
is measured by the Cross of Christ. The truth of 
the *' small number " of the heirs of salvation is, in 
Scripture, so compact and insistent that it amounts 
almost to a doctrine. St. Paul would seem to make 
it a doctrine when he compares the spiritual sit- 
uation of his day with the history of the old dis- 
pensation. He writes : *' Even so, then, at this 
present time also, there is a remnant saved accord- 

49 



50 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

ing to the election of grace. That stirring word 
"remnant" is used frequently by those servants of 
God, the prophets, when they speak of the problem 
of the lost and the saved. Indeed, the clause some- 
times becomes more explicit and is translated by 
the words, "small number" of the elect, or by the 
word " some " of the saved, in contrast with the 
" many " that are lost. Again, Esdras is stricken 
with horror, fearing that because of the sins of his 
people they shall all be lost. " Art thou angry 
with us unto utter destruction, not to leave us a 
remnant to be saved?" 

Thus Christ and His Apostles and His Saints, in 
word and act, do but consummate and protract the 
ancient truth proclaimed from the beginning: 
" For many are called, but few are chosen/* 

Interpret as you will the universality of the Flood 
or the reality of the Ark, is it not horrible to think 
that out of all the catastrophes only eight men 
found favor with God? St. Paul, concerned with 
God's election in reference to the Jews, quotes 
Isaias to demonstrate the paucity of the chosen and 
the overwhelming majority of the lost: "If the 
number of the children of Israel be as the sand of 
the sea, a remnant shall be saved." Evidently 
what was a problem for the Prophet was equally 
so for the Apostle of the Gentiles. 

Another tremendous consideration is that this 
world, with its manner of thought, its current 
opinion, its trend of civilization, prosperity, power 
and its vast numbers, seems to have no part with 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 51 

Christ. " I pray not for the world, but for them 
whom Thou hast given Me, because they are thine." 
Mark, too, the assertion of Our Redeemer which 
again includes the fewness of the elect: "Fear 
not, little flock, for it hath pleased your Father to 
give you a Kingdom." 

We begin to see the reasons for the intense fear 
of the Saints. If we regard them as extreme, singu- 
lar, exaggerated, it is because we have not scrutin- 
ized the far-reaching depth of the problem why 
"many are called and few are chosen." It is futile 
to theorize about the mystery of it. It is a personal 
concern whether we are of the few saved or the 
many lost. Speculations about its horror are of 
no personal service to us. The majority of men 
are unwilling to believe it, because (among various 
causes) they will not seek " the strait gate " and 
" the narrow way that leadeth unto life." That 
" the many " will not accept it, is a remote indica- 
tion of its truth. The question is not why God 
should act differently with individual men, but 
rather why individual men should act so dififer- 
ently with God. The soul's salvation rests per- 
sonally with man. That a soul is lost is not the 
will or fixed decree of God. It is the final develop- 
ment of a state of hardened rebellion against God 
and Christ and His Church, insofar as the Church 
expresses the Divine Will in history and in life. 
There have been men who, rather than face the 
fact that " many are called and few are chosen," 
have invented misconceptions and taught errone- 



52 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

ous views about it, with all the moral consequences 
which falsehood will produce. 

But here, again, the question provokes interest 
and discussion. Is it not wiser to believe it; to 
pray over it, humbly and simply, in the fashion of 
the Prophets, Apostles and Saints? "For many 
are called, but few are chosen." 



THE GRAIN OF WHEAT. 

" Amen, amen I say to you unless the grain of wheat 
falling into the ground, die; itself remaineth alone. 
But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." — John xii. 
24, 25. 

The explanation of these words of Christ is sim- 
ple. The seed of grain must be stuffed into the 
ground and die of rottenness before it can give 
birth to a blade of wheat. 

So too is it with the seed of truth. It must be 
buried away in the darkness before it can germi- 
nate — corruption, distortion, gestation, are condi- 
tions necessary for purification, generation. 

If it be an undoubted fact of science it would 
also seem to be a law in history. 

Truth which is a manifestation of God in life 
must more or less receive opposition from the 
world and hatred from men. 

Furthermore it would seem at times to be part 
of the eternal design that the prophets of the 
truth should be stoned, exiled and cast upon heaps 
of dung. 

What are men or systems in comparison with 
the greatness of truth? 

Christ's Body shackled with linen bands and 

53 



54 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

sealed in a sepulchre is another picture of the grain 
of wheat falling into the ground to die, and bring- 
ing forth much fruit. 

For do we not look to the decay of death for life, 
and to the gloom of the tomb for light? If an em- 
bodiment of ideas be the expression of God's own 
truth, it will eventually prevail in the fact of op- 
position, intrigue, prejudice, misrepresentation. 
If this providential purpose is interlaced through- 
out the fabric of profane history, must we not be- 
lieve that there is a more watchful care over the 
diviner truths — the corn of wheat sown in the 
sacred dust of Rome? Hardly had Christianity 
cast but a short shadow across the earth than St. 
Paul withstood St. Peter thrice and to face — yet 
truth embellished with the glory of Italian art has 
reared the same dome over the tomb of the two 
apostles. I would that I could tell the rich thoughts 
that flitted through my mind when saying Mass 
upon the spot where St. Peter spilt his blood or 
when I drank from the fountains that gushed sweet 
water at the touch of St. Paul's head, so grossly 
severed from his body. No lover of the holy 
Church of Rome can walk the streets of her capital 
without absorbing something of her magnificent 
composure. It may be that alien hands will yet 
wrest from her keeping the choice relics of four 
civilizations — but what of that? Even though the 
Pope were but a poverty-stricken pilgrim walking 
by the shores of the Tiber — he would still be the 
Vicar of Christ, the Chief Justice of the Supreme 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 55 

Court of Christendom, the living mouthpiece of 
God in modern history. The principle once ad- 
mitted, it matters not how distressing the human 
element of the Church may be. Once we have ex- 
pressed our unfeigned loyalty to the Throne of the 
Fisherman it is of little import whether men will 
cry : " He who passed is a false prophet — lo, there 
is the truth ! lo, here is the truth ! '* For us it is 
enough to believe that the holy Church is the custo- 
dian of the Revelation of Jesus Christ and as the 
Book of Proverbs has it, " An obedient man shall 
speak of victory." 

The seed planted in the ground was a sound 
seed, yet it needed some wise conserving force to 
hide it away from the w^anton birds of the air, to 
submit it to corruption, ta destroy it so that it 
might fructify a hundred-fold. For why should 
we waste precious time explaining aright this or 
making a distinction in that when we know that 
our sentiment was, is, and shall be according to 
the mind of the Church, and that truth depends 
neither upon the sanctity nor the malice of men. 

Enough it is to know that in loving what we be- 
lieve to be the light of truth, the cords of our hearts 
are more strongly knitted to the Holy See. If we 
thrive within its imperturbable majesty why 
should we wane disheartened if men cry that 
through ignorance and lack of fidelity we have 
gone out from our father's house into a strange 
land? 

Thanks be to the God of history for the calm sov- 



56 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

ereignty of the Holy Father, the Pope. " And his 
place is in peace and his abode in Zion. There hath 
he broken the powers of bows, the shield, the 
sword and the battle. Thou enlighteneth wonder- 
fully from the everlasting hills; all the foolish of 
heart were troubled. And his place is in peace and 
his abode in Zion. And his memory shall be in 
peace.** 



JESUS AND THE PLAIN PEOPLE. 

"And a very great multitude spread their garments 
in the way; and others cut boughs from the trees and 
strewed them in the way; And the multitudes that 
went before and that followed, cried, saying: Hosanna, 
to the Son of David; Blessed is He that cometh in the 
name of the Lord." — Matt, xxU 8, 9, 

Among the wholesome things to be learned from 
the text one is perhaps more obvious than all 
others. It is the spiritual principle that we are 
to be detached from creatures if we would wish 
to realize the mission which God has in mind for 
us. Jesus had in Him nothing of the demagogue. 
Possessed of the majesty of truth, He therefore 
cared not for the secrets which provoke the ap- 
proval of the crowds. On this occasion the popular 
welcome which He accepted was an honest expres- 
sion of the wish of the common people. If it is 
not always in history, nevertheless, at this moment, 
was it, indeed, the voice of God since it was the 
truthful voice of the multitude which had not yet 
been swayed by the authoritative influence of " the 
Chief Priests and Scribes." Jesus must have felt 
the sensible sweetness of that sincere applause of 
the plain people. They were quick-witted, as 
crowds usually are, to mark the salient features of 

57 



58 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

the fascination which He exercised over them. One 
was that although he sprung from the loins of 
noble stock — " Hosanna, to the son of David " — 
a line of gentility which though decayed was never- 
theless, royal, the plain people divined, as if by 
some rude instinct, that Jesus, although of the 
blood of Kings, belonged to them as much as He 
did to empires and thrones : " Hosanna, to the 
son of David! *' 

They, moreover, noticed the divine seal and un- 
earthly character of His mission : " Blessed, is He 
Who cometh in the name of the Lord." Though 
Jesus received with dignity and complacency this 
popular approbation, yet He put no undue estimate 
upon its value. If genius is analytic enough to de- 
tect the fickle nature of men and of popular move- 
ments, infinitely more so could the searching eye 
of Divinity perceive how readily the masses can 
under excitement be transformed into a howling 
rabble which will perpetrate any outrage — even the 
invocation of the innocent Blood of the Saviour of 
humanity upon its own head and upon the heads 
of its children yet to be born. 

This, therefore, is the truth to be drawn from 
the interpretation of the foregoing text. 

It is always wise to compute the relative worth 
of the favor of men. If in the fulfillment of our 
human destiny, our motives for personal action 
be subtly mixed or partially selfish there is the 
danger that at the abrupt withdrawal of apprecia- 
tion and sympathy we may react upon ourselves, 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 59 

wane discouraged and totally abandon our mission 
in life. When we are in prosperity or attractive 
or serviceable to others we do not lack trusted 
friendships, but let there come some unhappy mis- 
fortune, like the loss of health, wealth or reputa- 
tion, and instantly we find men fleeing from us, as 
a flight of timid birds take to the wing, when sud- 
denly shocked by some rude noise. 

High above human applause and affection there 
is the inestimable gift of spiritual repose — the fruit 
of the possession of an unalloyed divine purpose in 
all that we do — a direct concentration of all per- 
sonal action upon God, Who is the definite and 
lasting Object of all moral effort in life. 



THE STAR IN THE EAST. 

"Where is He that is born King of the Jews? For 
we have seen His star in the East." — Matt. ii. 2. 

This Gentile cry, once piercing the far ways of 
Persia and Arabia, bids fair to echo in Jewish 
hearts which are throbbing not only in Russia, 
Rumania or Poland, but in the alleys and side 
streets of our metropolitan city. There is a star 
hanging in the sky over the Holy Land, and the 
modern Zionists, consumed with a high passion, 
are building better than they know. Suetonius and 
Tacitus wrote that the wisdom of both East and 
West believed Judea to be the birthplace of men 
who would rule the world. 

All that is fundamentally spiritual shoots from 
the imperishable stock of the Hebrew race. The 
evidence of the Divinity of Christianity is in a 
measure the evidence of the Divinity of Judaism. 
There is a rigid principle of continuity running 
clean through the two systems, at least, with that 
authentic and integral system which we call 
Catholicism. So constructive a mind as Cardinal 
Newman's, reasons that Christianity clears up the 
mystery which hangs over Judaism. He hails 
Jerusalem as the classical home of the religious 
principle which absorbs all fundamental religions. 

60 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 61 

Christianity absorbs them all, Judaism included. 
Rome belongs to the Jews as does Jerusalem to the 
Christian. That Jerusalem and Jesus are not na- 
tional or racial was the perpetual cry of him who 
was Saul of Tarsus and a Jew of Jews. Rome, too, 
is as universal as Jerusalem is Catholic. Only 
Rome could, without an offensive anarchronism, 
plant an Egyptian obelisk in the piazza before the 
dome of St. Peter's or bestow on a Hebrew convert 
the vision to institute a religious organization. 

He who was of the tribe of Benjamin, already 
perceiving the impending dispersion of his race to 
the poles of the earth, could not believe that his 
people would be forever cast out. The Gentile is 
of the wild olive which has been grafted in the orig- 
inal tree. The sap and warm blood must thrill in 
the limbs of each that each may live, 

Zionism is no longer a golden dream. Jerusalem 
is delivered in a manner that reaches to the roots 
of civilization. It is not the Jerusalem of Tasso, 
nor, indeed, the Jerusalem of the five Popes who 
struggled some six hundred years ago to slacken 
the iron grip of the Turk; it is a new Jerusalem, 
even for the American Jew. 

With a fine sense of historic proportion British 
diplomacy has not averred but presumed that 
the Holy Land belongs to no man or nation. 
The sites of the temples and all the sacred 
places cannot totally belong to the Jews, no 
more than that Christ is his sole possession. But 
the Zionist with his wealth and sentiment can 



62 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

now lift the tragic shadow hanging over his race 
in that mysterious country. This is to be consum- 
mated by the amalgamation of the most hostile, yet 
religious peoples, wandering over the face of the 
earth. Zionism is even now accepted by inter- 
national agreement. It is to be financed by Jewish 
colonial trusts which have existed for a decade of 
years. 

Zionism is not an historic rhapsody. It is a 
practical movement to ameliorate the religious, 
economic and agricultural status of the Palestinian 
Jew. But again it is more than this. The intuitive 
genius of the race, doubtless provoked by centuries 
of persecution, is now touched with reverence for 
a romantic and unparalleled, historic antecedent. 
It is racial but religious, since the racial is so much 
a part of the religious. The creed is in the blood. 
The barrier of social convention and the deeply 
founded antipathy, glistening like a sharp sword, 
between Jew and Gentile, will, in the courts of Jeru- 
salem, be put into its scabbard. 

Not excepting the English, the American Jew 
has less of the unassimilative strain in relation 
with the Gentile type. Naturally the dissolution 
of this strain is slow and sooner effected by our 
more democratic mode of life, education and so- 
cial relationship. Much American anti-Semitism 
has been worn away by the constant association of 
Jew and Gentile in army camps at home, and in the 
close trenches and battlefields of France. Inter- 
esting it is that American Jews are among the 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 63 

most ardent Zionists. A superficial observer would 
reason otherwise, presuming that their prodigious i 
material success in the American Republic would 
constrain them to forget the ancient glories of 
Israel. If America is the melting-pot of Europe 
then Jerusalem is to be the melting-pot of both 
America and Europe. 

How can it be otherwise, if Jewish Palestine is 
to be held in trust by Western civilization and de- 
veloped and safeguarded by international polity? 
It is the shrine where must meet in amicable 
mood the Mahometan, the Jew, the Christian pil- 
grim and student to contemplate the sages, 
prophets, poets and saints who belong to all 
humanity. This world-wide constituency will per- 
force break the racial and religious conflict. The 
fundamental religions will be drawn to one cen- 
tre; comparisons will be drawn within the area of 
Golgotha, where was lifted up He Who w^ould draw 
all nations unto Himself. 

In that hour the Jew will take up the golden 
thread of his portentous history. We may say 
what w^e will of Greece and Rome, but Theism was 
and must be the life of the Jew. His acute com- 
mercialism is incidental. Cardinal Newman, in his 
enigmatic but nevertheless illuminating work, 
The Grammar of Assent, writes, that to him the 
last age of Jewish history is as strange as the first. 
But he is convinced that this chosen people, " did 
sin and whatever their sin was, is corroborated by 
the well-known chapter in the *Book of Deuteron- 



64 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

omy,' which so strikingly anticipates the nature 
of their punishment. That passage translated into 
Greek, as many as three hundred and fifty years 
before the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, has on it the 
marks of a wonderful prophecy." 

But now by a sudden twist in history, Jerusalem 
is free. Is this freedom to unravel the racial and 
religious entanglement of Jew and Gentile? Is 
Zionism, exclusive of its sociological purpose, to 
react to the significance of the Mosaic Covenant 
and the Messianic Idea? How can it do otherwise? 
These aspirations are woven in the fabric of 
Judaism. Its sublime literature, the expression of 
its soul, is replete with these undying hopes. Is 
it unreasoning optimism to believe that the eagle, 
that shattered the nest of her young and drove 
them out on the winds of heaven, has hovered over 
them and is now spreading her wings to bear them 
back? Is Zionism an adumbration of some historic 
religious boon to be vouchsafed to modern 
Judaism? 

" The Lord thy God will bring back again thy 
captivity and will have mercy on thee and gather 
thee again out of all the nations, into which He 
scattereth thee before. 

" If thou be driven as far as the poles of heaven, 
the Lord thy God will fetch thee back from thence. 

" And will take thee to Himself and bring thee 
into the land, which thy fathers possessed and 
thou shalt possess it: and blessing thee He will 
make thee more numerous than were thy fathers." 



ST. MAGARET OF CORTONA, THE PENITENT. 

" For Thy Mercy is magnified unto the heavens : and 
Thy Truth unto the clouds:*— Psalm IvL 2. 

St. Margaret of Cortona, because of the very 
human and penitential character of her career, has 
ever been more than many other saints an object of 
interest and special invocation for the faithful. The 
Tuscan chronicler puts it that her parents were ob- 
scure tillers of the soil in Umbria. They lived in 
Laviano, a tiny village near Pozzuolo, and situated 
in the valley of Chiana, a short distance from 
Lake Thrasimene. 

When Margaret was seven years old she lost in 
death her good and gracious mother. After two 
years' bereavement her father remarried. Her 
stepmother, jealous of the child's love for her 
dead mother, treated her so harshly that the little 
one conceived a profound aversion for her. Thus 
at a time when the sky is blue and all without is 
joyousness, Margaret was tasting contradiction and 
sorrow. One happy day of childhood there was, 
however, when she received her First Communion 
and was confirmed by the Bishop of Chiusi. 

Towards the age of fifteen, stirred by that need 
of affection which is natural to a young girl's heart, 

65 



66 SERMONS JN MINIATURE 

and being denied it at home, she sought it from 
without in the innocent social gayeties of her na- 
tive village. She was but a peasant girl, but nature 
had gifted her, we are told, with singular beauty 
of figure and carriage, a wealth of black hair and 
much intelligence and wit and an ardent heart. 
All her biographers say that her face, with its 
Italian profile, was, for all the world, like a fine 
antique cameo, and that the air of distinction about 
her made her to look rather like the daughter of 
nobility than a child of very humble origin. 

Some think she was in her seventeenth year 
when she met, riding on a horse along the road, a 
young nobleman from Monte Pulviano. He was 
lord of the manor of Valiano and of the Villa 
Palazzi. Dazzled by her comeliness, he spoke 
words of love and offered her jewels and a neck- 
lace of rich pearls, and urged her to follow him. 
Her refusal was prompt. She alleged its impos- 
sibility because of the difference of their rank and 
fortune. He waived her objections and ardently 
promised to marry her. Womanlike, she put faith 
in a promise which was only a vile snare, and per- 
haps hoping to escape the odious guardianship of 
her stepmother, she succumbed to the temptation, 
to elope with her guilty abductor. In the secret 
night and across the difficult marshes of Chiana 
she went with him into the darkness of moral 
death, remorse and despair. 

The rest of her story is of tragic pathos, until 
after twenty-three years of the austerest penitential 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 67 

works we find her triumphant over nature and a 
favored child of grace. We behold her son a 
learned and holy Franciscan monk. We see her 
once again, thanks be to God, in all the glory of her 
moral and physical beauty. We revere the mercy 
of God while we look upon her as the ecstatica 
clad in the white raiment and the veil and the 
bridal ring of her mystic espousals. Lastly we 
kneel at her tomb in Gortona in presence of her in- 
corrupt body and offer prayer to Him Who came to 
call not the just but sinners to repentance. 



A GREAT SIGN APPEARED IN THE HEAVENS. 

" A great sign appeared in heaven : A woman clothed 
with the sun and the moon under her feet and on her 
head a crown of twelve stars." — Apocalypse xii. 1, 

There is a principle of continuity running 
through all the religions and Christianity has ab- 
sorbed all that is excellent in all. It took that one 
authentic and integral form of Christianity to em- 
body in flesh and blood all that the noble pagans 
and refined poets among the heathens had sung and 
dreamed of with regard to womanhood. As 
Christ's Mother rose above the horizon all the 
choice spirits among men beheld the ideal vision 
of the eternal-womanly. There then gathered 
troops of painters, poets, dreamers and saints to 
do her honor. Afterward was created that 
mediaeval art which is the despair of the modern 
aesthetic temper. To confound the wise and as a 
stumbling block to the proud she, a Hebrew 
maiden, was chosen as instrument when the in- 
finite in His condescension clothed Himself with 
the flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone. The 
very thought of her moral comeliness elevated and 
chastened the imagination of man. 

It is a common fact among spiritual writers to 
find them insisting upon the necessity of placing 
all our affections in God. The human affection of 

68 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 69 

the Mother of Christ for her Son was the noblest 
conceivable, for the term of its exercise was purely 
and solely God. In the play of the maternal in- 
stinct the human emotion was actually the divine. 
She therefore personifies ideal human love. 

Those who would keep fresh and pure the senti- 
ment of the heart should look aloft to her as the 
exemplar. High-class love is perfected in restraint 
and everlastingly crowned in death. Through a 
series of abstinences and reserves we come to per- 
fection of heart, and blessed are the clean of heart, 
for they shall see God. He who would rend the veil 
and touch the ark must have clean hands. His 
eyes must be of the spirit to behold with composure 
the awfulness of the vision. 

Religion is not altogether but somewhat of the 
heart, although in the balanced character mind 
and will should play as large a part. It is to the 
glory of Christianity that it has evoked all that is 
tender and fair and spiritual in human affection. 
This could not always be said of paganism, for 
there were times when it brought out in the region 
of emotion that which was seductive and impure. 

How wise is the Christian Church in keeping be- 
fore us the central fact of the Incarnation, and 
that, too, in a human representation. There is not 
a mood of emotion in the human heart which is not 
appealed to and directed in the integral economy 
of the Incarnation, and the Church in dealing with 
man humanly has striven to draw him to God 
through the cords of Adam. 



70 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

Oh! thanks be to God for our holy Church of 
Rome, which has saved to the world of ethics these 
two morally fruitful ideas : First, the literal fulfill- 
ment in history of the ideal of womanhood, and 
secondly, the ideal expression of human love in 
actual life. 






THE NEW THANKSGIVING. 

** I will praise Thee, because Thou hast heard me and 
art become my salvation." — Psalm cxvii. 28. 

About thirty years ago Robert G. Ingersoll, the 
American agnostic, delivered in New York what he 
called " A Thanksgiving Sermon." It was splen- 
didly fluent and rhetorical, but its blasphemy was 
terrible. He tendered no thanks to God or gods. 
What had the gods done for man, said he, that man 
should offer them incense and rear their temples 
to the sky? The Saints were the parasites of 
humanity. Christ had added nothing to the sum 
of human knowledge, that would alleviate physi- 
cal suffering. He never once taught man how to 
weave raiment or build a house — how to shield 
himself from storm or fire, famine or plague, hun- 
ger or thirst. 

To the eyes of faith it were no task to detect the 
tokens of Providence, made manifest in the suffer- 
ing of each individual life. Now, since peace has 
come, it is possible, even historically, with our new 
American republic. In a manner and because of 
suffering, our heterogeneous country w^as never 
more homogeneous and a closer part of ourselves 
than it is today. A kindred suffering has made 

71 



72 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

us one. Suffering and the possibility of suffering 
have provoked thoughts more serious than ever 
before. The sight of blood demonstrates that we 
are in the throes of a new national birth : there is a 
new American Republic. 

At this moment the world is on fire with hatred 
and encompassed with every species of misery and 
confusion: judged humanly and viewed without 
the spiritual sense, there is in it little or no cause 
for thanksgiving. Such is the world at large, but 
w^hat of the American Republic? Is there in it any 
new development to warrant gratitude, any revela- 
tion to give us heart of hope for the future? Com- 
parisons must be made to answer such a question. 

See the principalities of the old world. Empires, 
kingdoms, republics, self-sufficient and eager for 
conquest, are now desolate and fearful. All things 
human have failed them, the keenest human genius 
and endeavor have proved futile. Europe has 
awakened to behold, through the tears of suffering, 
that God alone is great and that the outcome of 
this universal tumult is in the hands of an Invis- 
ible King. 

France, our sister Republic, so Catholic at heart 
and dear to us — in spite of what has been said — 
has made expiation in blood. The mystical sense, 
always in the soul of France, has leaped to the sur- 
face, like good blood in reaction. The crucifix 
once wrested from the vision of little children is 
now, indeed, a symbol of suffering and flashes more 
brightly than ever in the Madeleine, at Montmartre 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 73 

and Notre Dame. Once was von Kluck but seven- 
teen miles from Paris and said the French : " God 
has blinded his eyes," and he turned south- 
east, never to enter the brilliant city. The religious 
awakening of France came from the shock of 
national suffering. 

The England, too, of the Reformation is gone, 
never to return. Its new, religious birth has 
sprung from the loins of England suffering. Suf- 
fering, like Catholicism, is universal and a pro- 
found reality. So now the Catholic priest does the 
work of many an Anglican parson, and pallid, 
dying lips kiss the symbol of suffering which once 
was thought to be an instrument of superstition. 
There are prayers for the dead, where once there 
were never prayers for the dead. There are 
prayers for the dead where once there were neither 
prayers for the living nor prayers for the dead. 
Men pray who never prayed before. The war- 
shrines in the streets of London might deck the 
roads of Catholic Bavaria or the genial slopes of 
Southern Italy. May we behold again the England 
of St. Thomas of Canterbury, the intrepid Martyr, 
who shed his blood for England and for Rome ! 

Again, this new circumstance of English national 
sufiPering has leveled some barriers of class, and 
even race, distinction. In the bloody trenches of 
France there are within " elbow touch ** not only 
the types of English nobility, gentry, commoner 
and peasant, but the Scotch, Irish, English and 
Welsh. This, at least, is a kind of democracy 



74 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

dreamed of by some lovers of humanity. Democ- 
racy, that much abused word, that word of music 
and of magic, which falls so often from hypocriti- 
cal lips, that genuine " brotherhood of man," is 
now to be consummated by the fellowship of suf- 
fering. 

Considering our own country, are we, too, to be 
regenerated by our entrance into this dark zone of 
suffering? Can the American mind see that the 
vicissitudes of the yoke of suffering are only sweet 
when measured by the norm of the Cross? With- 
out a doubt, the nations of Europe needed some 
measure of chastisement, for moral security. Are 
we so unwary as to imagine that we can attain 
moral worth without the discipline of suffering? 
As in other countries, so in ours, the new national 
life exists only on the terms of death, the shedding 
of blood. The spiritual gifts, so dearly purchased 
by older nations, must accrue to us and only on 
the same terms of suffering and death. 

This suffering will create new manifestations of 
national character and conscience. If we have not 
been, as a nation, averse to religion, we have been 
indifferent to it. Suffering may, perforce, reveal 
its value, when craving interior solace. Strange 
fact, that suffering must overshadow a nation to 
constrain it to have no illusions concerning itself. 
We cannot hope to escape the operations of this in- 
exorable law. We needs must be broken to dis- 
cover ourselves. There is sore need for us to per- 
ceive that we are in no supernatural sense a great 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 75 

nation. Our material prosperity has made us big, 
but not spiritually great. Our thanksgiving should 
not be merely for what, under God, we have done, 
but for what we hope to do and prayed to be. 
Already the red dawn in the sky betokens a new 
undying glory. Heroes have died that our country 
may live. Alas! The seed must die to bring the 
bloom and beauty of the flower and fruitage. 

Measured briefly, what are the qualities to be 
ours in this new era? First, the religious instinct 
of the nation will be more largely developed, under 
the sharp sting of adversity. This will be a tre- 
mendous gain, for although we are not anti-reli- 
gious, we are not a religious nation. We are not 
conscious of our spiritual limitations. We urge 
definiteness of expression and action in everything 
but religion, hence, in the deepest instinct of char- 
acter, the religious, we are vague and indifferent 
as a nation. 

Secondly, the national and racial divergences, 
like the social and racial in England and France, 
will be softened, merged and drawn by the dis- 
cipline of suiTering to a common centre. Never as 
now does the issue of the war give promise of 
diverse and even hostile races — Celt, Saxon, Scan- 
dinavian, Teuton, Jew and Gentile — all knit to- 
gether by the common bond of suffering, the 
picturesque vision of many rivers flowing toward a 
central sea. 

Thirdly, a seriousness of purpose and unselfish- 
ness have already come and w411 in a more intense 



76 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

degree possess us, now that we have sincerely 
taken hold of the burdens oppressing the Allied 
Powers. To do for others always reacts and 
strengthens character, besides being Divinely meri- 
torious. It is the appalling insincerity in politics, 
business, the press and in the general conduct of 
life which provokes us, at times, to lose confidence 
in our public men, public journals and public 
opinion. There are things said and written with- 
out conviction, and said and written by publicists 
and writers who have not character enough to 
arrive at a conviction. There are noble things, 
even virtues, like patriotism, charity, education, 
religion, hypocritically extolled for political and 
selfish purpose. Again, there are internal dissen- 
sions and economic difficulties to be settled only 
by the external distraction of caring for other na- 
tions, in their suffering and fear. 

Finally, under the mellowing and potent in- 
fluence of this new, national suffering, there shall 
disappear the false optimism, fraud, egotism and 
pretense. We shall awake to learn, under the 
spell of suffering, that we have found, indeed, our 
life as a nation by actually losing it. For this, or 
rather for the hope of this baptism of suffering, 
this national regeneration, we give thanks to the 
Almighty and Everlasting God. 



THE CURSE ON THE FIG TREE. 

" He spoke also this parable : A certain man had a 
fig-tree planted in his vineyard and he came seeking 
fruit on it and found none." — Luke xiii. 6. 

Notice the peculiar setting to the image. The 
fig-tree is not planted in an orchard, but in a vine- 
yard. In our wine country of California the vine- 
yards are not broken by the growth of trees. Yet 
it is the experience of travelers in Palestine to see 
at times, not often, a fig, thorn or apple-tree jut- 
ting itself out in a cornfield or a vineyard. The 
learned who have studied this parable gather from 
the Hebrew and Greek languages a meaning which 
we cannot altogether get from the English. It was 
not a fig-tree which the vine-dresser had accidently 
chanced upon. It was one which had been jeal- 
ously nurtured. Moreover, it is said that the soil 
of the vineyard is eminently gracious to the thriv- 
ing of the fig. Among the Jews there was a legal 
enactment that the vineyard must not be strewn 
with different kinds of seeds, but it did not for- 
bid the setting out of single trees. Licit, therefore, 
was the desire of the owner of the vineyard that 
this fig-tree should bear not only much, but excel- 
lent fruit. 

77 



78 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

Obviously the first interpretation is that the 
Jewish people were divinely ordained to fulfill an 
extraordinary historic destiny. But the parable 
can without a strain be applied to the Gentile 
world. As a race we have shared in the fruits of 
redemption, sanctification, intercession, yet as a 
race how capable we are of signal failure. With 
the height and depth and width of the Atonement 
and with the infinite receptivity of the spirit of 
man, what comparatively is the value of the spirit- 
ual fruit which we have borne in the vineyard 
during all these nineteen hundred years? When 
I consider the unparalleled sanctity of Christ with 
even the noblest flowerings of sanctity, I more 
easily am resigned to the moral obscurities and 
spiritual confusion so characteristic of our world 
ever since it has been known — for these last six 
thousand years. ** And the next day when they 
came out from Bethania He was hungry. And 
when He had seen afar off a fig-tree having leaves. 
He came if perhaps He might find anything on it. 
And when He was come to it. He found nothing but 
leaves. For it was not the time for figs. But an- 
swering, He said to it: May no man hereafter eat 
fruit of thee any more forever. And His dis- 
ciples heard it." The curse that fell on the fig 
tree let us not hope rested upon the world. There 
is a becoming propriety in the figurative method 
of looking upon humanity as a tree and the fruit 
thereof being the organic expression of its in- 
terior life. The history of humanity is not some- 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 79 

thing fastened on to humanity from without. It is 
the personal utterance of the works of the race. 
" By their fruits ye shall know them." 

How small and truly elect is that Communion of 
Saints when viewed in the light of the myriads of 
men that have gone to death. " Vinea mea, electa, 
ego te plantavi, dicit Dominus." *' For it shall he 
thus in the midst of the earth, in the midst of the 
people, as if a few olives that remain shall be 
shaken out of the olive tree: or grapes when the 
vintage is ended." It is indeed wonderful to think 
that if humanity were not so vehement in its 
desires and possibilities we would not be struck 
so forcibly by the paucity of its fruits. If it is 
possible to put all the biographs of the saints on a 
few shelves, the same might be done with all the 
classical literature of the world. A few pictures 
reflect all the schools of art and a few cathedrals 
manifest all styles of architecture yet it cannot be 
proven that if humanity had striven more keenly 
its performances would be equally as slender. Al- 
though it is that spiritual aristocracy which has 
saved the world, its redemption has been pur- 
chased with sweat and blood. In our best mo- 
ments, as a fig tree, we needs must feel digged 
about and dunged and planted in a vineyard. Then 
the master came seeking fruit and found none. 
" What is there that I ought to do more to my 
vineyard, that I have not done to it." 

There must come even to the lowliest perhaps 
but once or twice, the intuitions of our potential 



80 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

greatness. Some apparent trifle in the realm of 
our nature or of grace may have made it manifest. 
Yet when we compare the world of humanity to a 
barren fig-tree in its setting of green on the vine- 
.clad hills of Palestine we must not be depressed 
for " faith is the substance of things hoped for, 
the evidence of things not seen.'* It was Newman 
that sincere thinker who when the tumult and con- 
fusion of the world distressed him rushed back 
to the inner sanctuary of his being to find God and 
himself luminous and true. Yet all is well when 
God is in heaven and the voice of conscience rings 
strong in the spirit of man. "Faith is the substance 
of things hoped for." "And he shall be like a tree 
which is planted near the running waters, which 
shall bring forth its fruit in due season." 

After all the lesson in the parable is individual. 
In our hearts we know the lights, inspirations, im- 
pulses and special privileges which have been 
granted us. The momentous question is — have 
they borne fruit? 

" Blessed be the man that trusteth in the Lord 
and the Lord shall be his confidence. And he 
shall be as a tree that is planted near the waters, 
that spreadeth out its roots toward moisture: and 
it shall not fear when the heat cometh. And the 
leaf thereof shall be green and in the time of 
drought it shall not be solicitous, neither shall it 
cease at any time to bring forth fruit." 

The rare achievement of genius and sanctity will 
disturb us less if we cooperate more freely with 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 81 

the influences of divine grace. " And now, O ye 
inhabitants of Jerusalem and ye men of Juda, 
judge between Me and My vineyard. What is 
there that I ought to do more to My vineyard than 
I have not done to it?" 



THE NET CAST INTO THE SEA. 

" The kingdom of heaven is hke to a net cast into 
the sea and gathering together of all kinds of fishes. 
—Matt. xiii. 47. 

The Church must be superior, yet not opposed, 
to the State, as the State must not be antagonistic 
to the Church, but each must have its own sphere. 
The Mediterranean to the south of France is quite 
unlike the blue waters of the Adriatic, and the 
Baltic Sea to the north of Germany is fringed with 
a country dissimilar from the Irish coast. By this 
I mean there is sometimes the danger of trans- 
planting foreign measures to effect a domestic 
cause. 

Italy and Spain are lands rich in poetry and 
sentiment, romance and melancholy, art and reli- 
gion; where the women are easily beautiful, and the 
skies ever soft; where every grain of dust is tinged 
with martyrs' blood, and every church treasure 
house contains a sacred relic. In Spanish churches 
pretty children, clad in white, in streaming 
flowers, dance before the tabernacle. The Italian 
festa is a national holiday, and the patron saint of 
the town is the hero of the hour. These people 
are artistic — so is their religion. They live on 

82 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 83 

ideals, they love heroes, they must have bright 
lights and florid music, color, and form. 

With us religion is accidently different; the 
country is practical; the people cast in severer 
mold. Essentially, we believe the same truths; ac- 
cidently our applications are different. There are 
men in the Church today who will not make com- 
promises in little things, thinking that they are 
sacrificing principle. They will not relax the cords 
of the net to give way to the action of the waters. 
The consequence is that the Church in many places 
is unduly under strain from the force of the cur- 
rent in the sea. 

It is of the nature of the Church to yield to the 
pitch and violence, the dash and fretting of the 
waves. The fabric of its net was stitched to be 
worn upon the crest and trough of the billow; its 
texture gives way with pressure and rises with the 
heaving of the swell. Shall we not see that the 
fundamentals are few, that upon the outer margin 
of our line of work there is almost unfettered 
liberty, the capacity to adapt the Church to moving 
conditions in this new life in the United States? 

There are pressing problems all about us, ripe 
for solution. Men nowadays are not troubled by 
ripples on the surface, they strike down to the bed- 
rock of the stream. It is not so much that they 
will not believe in a truth, but they deny the ob- 
jective existence of all truth. There are the subtle 
difficulties of sociology, problems of justice, defini- 
tion of rights, limitations of ownership, brokerage 



84 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 



and interest, usury and speculation, a more 
thorough understanding between moral ethics and 
medical science, questions of crime and heredity, 
the rights of life as against the agents of destruc- 
tion and so on. 

Men say we are narrow and sometimes they are 
right. We shall never probably be understood 
upon the question of education until we make it 
clear that we are not seeking to destroy the present 
system, but rather looking for some method that 
shall assure moral and religious discipline for the 
young. The ignorant will ever distort our motives 
until we show that our centuries of traditional 
teaching do not prevent us from bowing in rever- 
ence to the advances of pedagogy and all the 
sciences that are true. " He saith to them : cast 
the net on the right side of the ship and you shall 
find." 



WOMAN IN PUBLIC LIFE. 

"And she rendered to the just the wages of their 
labors and conducted them in a wonderful way: and 
she was to them for a covert by day, and for the light 
of stars by night." — Wisdom x. 17, 

There is sweet solace in the thought that though 
the laws anent women may be as mutable as the 
sea, woman will remain ever and forever the same. 
The fluctuations of custom and fashion may excite 
her for the moment, but the novelty dies down and 
she reacts to her lovable and fundamental self. 
This is the only exhilarating truth in the general 
confusion of thought which overshadows us, now 
that woman has thrust herself into the public con- 
flicts of men. With the measured pace of time, will 
there come the inevitable slump in the actual vot- 
ing? The game has been perhaps too rough and 
she will awaken to discover that she is helpless in 
the domain of public performance both by nature 
and grace, in mind and in body. 

Yet, for the present, her self-assertiveness will 
blaze up, inflamed by the ardent insincerity of the 
politician. She being credulous and trusting, as is 
her nature, will confuse patriots with politicians 
and in this exalted mood all her geese will be as 
swans. 

Already, political manipulation is feeling for the 
fibres of her heart, since it cannot reach the gray 

85 



86 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

tissue of her brain. The subtle cunning of political 
method has divined that woman approaches the 
problems of life with her heart and not with her 
head. St. Thomas Aquinas said something of the 
same thing, but he was a Dominican friar and lived 
in the Middle Ages. Did it take the searching 
splendor of his genius to discover a truth known 
to every youth who has loved a maid? Coventry Pat- 
more in an ugly mood clumsily translates the 
philosopher's words with the statement that 
woman is " scarcely a reasonable creature." Now 
we know the Saint completes the distinction be- 
tween irrationalis and vix rationalis. He does not 
mean that the devout sex is irrational or scarcely 
rational, but that deep down in the very roots of its 
nature the emotional strain is dominant and the 
rational ever subservient. 

This weakness or dependence seems to be parcel 
of the Divine scheme, and hence the perennial 
source of not only the interior influence but the 
inspiration of romance, poetry and art. 

Moreover, woman's delicate reserve is the breath 
of moral life, the origin of her incomparable per- 
sonal charm. Because of her inappropriateness for 
the things of strength, intellectual and physical, 
she will lose out in this unruly public scrimmage 
oS politics. Can she be taught to do something 
which will subvert the fixed and unalterable 
economy of the Divine design? Can she upset the 
past and make anew her nature? If the suffrage 
movement is builded on a fallacy, wherewith shall 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 87 

we defend woman from herself or adjust the de- 
fects of her qualities? Will she because of the 
glorification of a vote wax stronger physiologically 
and be adorned with an intellectualism never pos- 
sessed before? Will her latent genius, as she calls 
it, exploit itself under this novel adjustment of cir- 
cumstances, or will she retain her natural, primal 
instinct for motherhood rather than for the crea- 
tion of a Divina Commedia or a Venus de Milo? 
Does the forcefulness of genius ride roughshod 
over untoward conditions? If so, woman's oppor- 
tunity has come and gone, long since, and she still 
is the creature of infinite variety but within a cir- 
cumscribed sphere. 

The rude demagogue shall find no favor with 
woman, but what of the refined, wary, if not comely 
type of professional politician? Will he, like 
Richard, the wicked monarch, creep into favor with 
himself for the prowess of his vicious undertaking 
with the impressionable queen? 

This if it be a truth will die hard, but woman's 
blatant self-sufficiency is evanescent and the more 
provoked by her tremendous efficiency in the criti- 
cal suffering of the cursed war. In that she was her 
supreme and sweet self, for it sat well on her na- 
ture. Will she draw conclusions wider than the 
premises and mistake her deeds in a crisis for nor- 
mal action in a permanent environment? If per- 
haps she does not, then some chivalrous politician 
will do it for her. Already we shudder to think 
that such a type of politician is extant. Will she 



88 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

because of her susceptibility and sacrificial capacity 
be made a burnt offering on his new altar? So 
now, instead of one we have two problems embrac- 
ing the complex structure of womankind. Its 
prodigious complexity is a byword even for those 
who have never studied a word of feminine ana- 
lysts, like Balzac or Bourget or, the less psychologi- 
cal but diverse Englishmen, Meredith, Hardy and 
Patmore. They are of one mind that though there 
may be several species of woman in womanhood, 
every woman is several species of womanhood in 
herself. The gigantic proportions of the difficulty 
become at once obvious, its manifold aspects are 
unspeakable. 

To compare the craft and erudition of the 
modern woman with opulent intelligence and secret 
power of the woman of bygone times, is to draw 
comparisons between the glowworm and the star. 
These iridescences of feminine splendor had every- 
thing of accomplishment and grace, in keeping 
with the eternal womanly. But they had it, 
naturally, for it was part of the Providential plan. 
Hence they never lost distinction or composure, 
nor were they ever consumed with hysteria for the 
possession of a public boon which ran counter to 
the impregnable walls of the womanly nature. 

Furthermore, not only the criminologist but the 
moralist will venture to think that never was a 
more vital principle of psychological experience, 
applicable to this urgent situation than corrupfio 
optimi pessima. Can the female become more 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 89 

deadly than the male even in politics? If the In- 
dian squaw in Utah can barter her Divine privilege 
of a vote for seventy-five cents, what is to con- 
strain the negro wench from offering hers for the 
enormous sum of one dollar? But this is a merely 
incidental and can, perhaps, be regulated by a law, 
if not by a vote. 

But can a vote alter something deeper than the 
foundation of the everlasting hills? The demorali- 
zation of the red woman will react on her papoose 
as the moral frailty of the black matrix will be 
vouchsafed to her pickaninies. If the salt be there, 
but lacking in savor, wherewith shall things be 
salted? St. Francis de Sales, who, like St. Vincent 
de Paul and Fenelon, understood the divine side 
of womankind, believed that there was nothing so 
malodorous as the foul stench of decaying lilies. 
This is, at least, a pungent fact, if the lily be the 
white symbol of inviolate feminine excellence. 
Lacordaire was a friar but of a modern type and of 
a mind which reasoned that the world can corrupt* 
all things, even so fair a creature as a woman. 
Though shielded by angelic influence, the Blessed 
Joan of Arc slept in her steel armor. She was deal- 
ing with men. This new species of womanhood 
must be thrice armed to meet the devices of politi- 
cal action. It does not matter if her quarrel be 
just or otherwise. To discourse upon so fine a sub- 
ject in so gross a fashion: it is the female dealing 
with the male as never before in history, the ways 
of a man with a maid. 



90 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

The Spanish women are slender in form and rather 
vain of their tiny feet. Of old the feet of the Span- 
ish Madonna were hid in fleecy clouds and folds of 
cloth of gold. It was the artists' passion to paint 
the ideal woman. If his jealousy was provoked 
by the protrusion of a foot, what would he have 
said to the exploitation of a modern woman? 
Would his idealism interpret aright, if he should 
conclude that the standards had relaxed? Will 
the feminine ideal eventually die and the people 
perish? Will our youth no longer see visions or 
dream dreams? If woman is now the business vic- 
tim of merchant, broker, banker and lawyer, be- 
cause these professions have no ideal sense, is there 
a budding evil already asserting itself in her novel 
relationship with the politician? That he has 
already dared to batten on the weakness of her 
strength is the first indication that he, too, is be- 
ginning to lose the ideal sense in reference to 
woman. How is she to make the best of this bad 
job? There is but one method — to be her honest 
self and seek the ministrations of the priest, the 
poet and the lover. 



JEWS AND IRISH. 

"Lord, Thou hast blessed Thy land: Thou hast 
turned away the captivity of Jacob." — Psalm Ixxxiv. 2, 

Even when the fire of the Druids burned on the 
altars the Irish race had a consuming passion for 
symbolism. It discovered forebodings in the leap- 
ing music of the streams, in the notes of the lark, 
the linnet and the thrush. There was an omen in 
the sheen of color and the aroma of an odor, in the 
gleam and scent of the wild flowers, in the green 
and gold of the moss in the valleys, in the purple 
of the heather on the hills. Its mystical sense 
gave a preternatural twist to every mood of its 
mournful career. 

The Irish race even likened itself to another elect 
and conquered race, the Jewish, and saw in its 
divinity some reflection of its own. Time was 
when we thought these comparisons not only 
limped but fell; that they were models of rhetoric 
fit for the orator's Celtic imagination and fluency 
of speech. But the historic similarity between 
these two most dissimilar races, Hebrew and Irish, 
grows more acute with the process of these por- 
tentous hours. At the outset there is the grim kin- 
ship of interminable suffering. The manifesto of 
Zunz, the Jewish patriot, anent the suffering of 
his race, is so comprehensive that it has been com- 

91 



92 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

pared to the prologue of a tragedy by the Greek, 
Euripides. To paraphrase only three sentences 
of it is highly commendable. 

I^ there are ranks in suffering, Israel takes prec- 
edence of all the nations. If sorrow, borne well, 
ennobles, then the Jews are among the aristocracy 
of every land. If literature is an expression of life, 
what shall we say of a national tragedy in which 
the poets and actors were also the living heroes? 
This is a miniature replica of Ireland's history. 
Tv^o irrepressible and ubiquitous races, possessed 
with a splendid inheritance of suffering, have this 
in common: they have not been crushed by their 
historic misfortunes. On the contrary, their 
national aspirations have never been more domi- 
nant. So profound are they that to the utilitarian 
sense they seem like overwrought rhapsodies. The 
moderate Irishman says of the Sinn Feiner what 
the rationalistic Jew says of the Zionist : " His head 
is in the stars so that his feet can never touch 
the ground." 

Moses with his sheep at the foot of Mount Horeb 
and the Divine Voice out of the burning bush are 
remote historic pictures, but Zionism is a vital 
proximate reality. So is the dire pitifulness of an 
ancient people, alive with the passionate love of 
country and struggling at this moment to build 
for themselves a republic at the majestic portals 
of the wide sea. " In those days and at that time, 
saith the Lord, the Children of Israel shall come, 
they and the Children of Juda together going and 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 93 

weeping; they shall go and seek the Lord their 
God. They shall ask the way to Zion with their 
faces, thitherward, saying, * Come and let us join 
ourselves to the Lord, in a perpetual covenant.* " 

A light has been shifted toward Jerusalem 
although the Temple is not there. But who shall 
say that from antecedent destruction or because of 
th« scattered remnants strewn over the earth, that 
the Jews cannot affect modern history? Zionism 
betokens a sign of a resilient and preternatural 
vigor. The dispersion of a race is no proof that it 
has lost its primeval strength or historic destiny. 
Rather, the pressure of its untoward career may 
be the condition of the fulfilment of its mission. 
For nations and races, as well as men, have voca- 
tions and are constructed to complete a purpose in 
the vast scheme of history. Moreover, it would 
seem that different historical issues are produced 
by the very dissimilar characteristics of different 
races. 

The Irish symbolists of a mystical turn behold in 
the ancient Egyptian oppression of the Israelites a 
parallelism between their own vicissitudes and 
the lack of imagination, temperament and racial 
insensibility of the British Empire. Pharao met 
the appeal of Moses by oppressing the Jews with 
a more heavy yoke. Plagues and pillage come and 
go like infernal shadows, yet the King remains ob- 
durate. Between Sinai on the south and Elim on 
the north, Jews die and die within sight of the 
Promised Land. But the black memories of an 



94 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

honorable past do not stifle the hopes which spring 
eternal. 

The cry of a royal and priestly people is ringing 
in the lanes of every Ghetto, in the doings of a 
people's parliament in Dublin, the pathetic and 
piercing expression of an Irish Republic. Again 
out of the burning brush comes the Voice: "Be- 
hold the cry of the children of Israel is come unto 
Me; and I have seen their affliction wherewith they 
are oppressed by the Egyptians." If there is a noble 
optimism in the Zionist eager to conserve his 
national genius which is his life, so, too, is there in 
the Irish struggle. Is it to be, once again a pas- 
sionate and futile hope? Is it but a blessed dream, 
to behold a country gathering to her wings her ex- 
iled sons and daughters? From the Babylonian 
captivity to this very hour the Jews have never 
ceased to dream of taking up their national history 
at the point where they left it in the Holy City. 
The inspired visions of prophets, the wail of the 
harpists in their exile, the sincerest music in the 
sublimest psalms are strung to the one tone. The 
ancient bardic music of the Irish is a broken and 
vague lament for a home and a country. 

All down through history have these two races 
kept through blood and sweat, fire and water, their 
high hopes. In spite of centuries of persecution 
there is still alive the small flame that may relight 
the altars which have been dug down, and the Hand 
not shortened may pile up the stones that have 
not been left one upon another. Ah! Were it 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 95 

foolish to hail these natural impulses as an un- 
conscious awakening of grace? Surely plenteous 
mercies are in store for races which have suffered 
so much. At least they have a cause for which 
youth, beauty and love might die upon verdant 
fields and in the echoing valleys. 

It is obvious that the unassimilative quality in 
the Jew has conserved his type unique and secure. 
But how explain the distinct individualism, which 
is Irish, for as a race it is emotional, susceptible, 
assimilative and tender as woman? 

There are reigning critics, some of them ignorant 
and others discriminating, who in every species of 
diabolism discover a black drop of Prussian blood. 
But it is not uninteresting to mark how the rugged 
genius, Bismarck, gave the impetus, about the 
year 1878, to that ignoble strife termed anti- 
Semitism. But what is more interesting is that out 
of its drastic confusion sprang Zionism, which was 
at first the organized fear of the Jews to shield 
themselves from the fury of Central Europe. 
Treitschke's cry, " The Jews are our curse," spread 
across to ungracious haunts in Austria-Hungary, 
France and Russia. Thus was Zionism born in the 
throes of Jewish misery. Shall it be perfected in 
glory when Jerusalem shall arise and be enlight- 
ened? 

Ireland's brow is bound with the same fillet of 
divine misfortune and a day must come when the 
long cycle of suffering will close. He does not read 
history aright who sees nothing but the outcome of 



96 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

human events even in the sacrificial blood of Eas- 
ter, 1916, which now refuses to be washed from 
the gutters of dirty Dublin. Such a cause we are 
taught must be safeguarded with some assurance 
of success to be in keeping with the traditional 
teaching. But what if a series of such crises should 
ultimately prove successful. Then, these circum- 
stances forced by men might be Divinely per- 
mitted to complete some Providential historical 
development. Who shall say? However, the rough 
fact remains, two ancient and honorable races, 
alike in suffering and in hope, stand at the gates 
ready for a boon which is the common heritage of 
every race and nation of the world. 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 

" You are fellow citizens with the Saints and the 
domestics of God." — Eph. ii, 19. 

The law of relationship or dependence is very 
apparent in the economy of the physical universe. 
It is a law equally evident in the operations of the 
spiritual kingdom. It is made more manifest by 
the doctrine of the Communion of Saints. Cer- 
tainly, it is a very great discovery which we 
acquire from science, that there is a uniform law 
beneath all things and making for one common 
purpose. 

In the domain of the spirit, this truth is ex- 
plicitty revealed for us by St. Paul with the 
figure (in the text above) of the organism or house- 
hold or body having members which are dependent 
for life, one upon the other. 

The basis of the doctrine of the Communion of 
Saints is found in the law of dependence and the 
intercommunication of right and privileges among 
the citizens of Our Lord's spiritual commonwealth : 

" You are fellow citizens with the Saints and the 
domestics of God." 

The beauty of this doctrine is discovered in the 
sense of proportion or relationship which one 
spirit has to the other. This proportion is likewise 
noticed in the material system. It explains much 

97 



98 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

of that unspeakable and marvelous beauty in na- 
ture. 

The bright moon hanging in the sky is beautiful 
in its own native ruggedness, but because of its 
obedience to the law of proportion with the sun, 
its beauty is enhanced to an unusual degree. Of 
itself it has no warmth or light, but in due season, 
as it revolves in the heavens, the sun casts its light 
upon it — making it a "thing of beauty" and "a 
joy forever " to the poet* 

In some such manner does Our Redeemer, the 
Sun of Justice — the Lord of the moral kingdom — 
reflect His spiritual light and warmth on every 
" member " of His " Body." " For you are all one 
in Christ Jesus." 

There are stars and planets in the celestial sys- 
tem which gather their light from the sun. They 
receive it in proportion to their degree of relation- 
ship — for " star differeth from star " in the earthly 
as well as the spiritual economy. From this we can 
understand how the measure of grace is dependent 
on the law of obedience of the soul to Christ — the 
Central Sun of the ethical system. Although there 
is a diversity of gifts among us, we, all, even the 
most insignificant, are necessary to each other and 
play a part in the vast machinery of Christ's world : 
" And some, indeed. He gave to be apostles and 
some prophets and others were evangelists and 
others pastors and teachers; for the perfection of 
the saints, for the work of the ministry, unto the 
edification of the body of Christ." 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 99 

In a spiritual as well as in a common govern- 
ment all participate in the benefits derived from 
actions done for the common weal — the public 
good — because all the citizens are parts of one com- 
plete spiritual or social organism : ** From Whom 
the whole body, compacted and fitly joined to- 
gether by what every joint supplieth, according to 
the operation in the measure of every part, making 
increase of the body into the edifying of itself in 
charity." 

Now the saints are the representatives and 
leaders in, what we may call, that spiritual democ- 
racy of common ownership. Every good deed 
which they have performed has made for the bet- 
terment of all. As with lovers of the people in a Re- 
public, when lifting the standards of public life, 
all the people are benefited — so the moral ideals 
as embodied by the Saints react upon the moral 
vitality of the faithful. The Saints are our spirit- 
ual heroes, our moral idealists. We needs must be 
hero-worshippers for " when the vision dies the 
people perish." 

" After this there appeared also another man, 
admirable for age and glory and environed with 
great beauty and majesty. Then Onias, answering, 
said : This is a lover of his brethren and of the peo- 
ple of Israel: this is he that prayeth much for the 
people and for all the holy city, Jeremias the 
prophet of God." 

If a planet in the firmament shoots from its orbit 
there is chaos in the region about it, though the 



100 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

general order is not disturbed. Sometimes a very 
small piece in the structure of a gigantic machine 
will thwart the whole purpose for which it was 
made, A most minute detail in the subtle works of 
a watch is an absolute necessity that it may keep 
time — a slight ill-adjustment in its mechanism will 
mar its purpose. So it is necessary that every 
soul should be in complete harmony with the 
Divine Will that the Divine purpose for which the 
world was created shall not be frustrated. It is, 
moreover, necessary that this constituency of souls 
should all fight together as against one common 
enemy- — the enemy of Christ : " I desire first of 
all that supplications, prayers, intercessions and 
thanksgivings be made for all men. For Kings and 
for all that are in high stations, that we may lead 
a quiet and a peaceable life in all piety and 
chastity. For this is good and acceptable in the 
sight of God Our Saviour — Who will have all men 
to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the 
truth. For there is one God and one Mediator of 
God and men, the Man Christ Jesus." 

This statement of St. Paul contains the whole 
doctrine of the Communion of Saints and shows 
how, with the mediatorship of Christ our King, 
intercessory prayer is of common service in with- 
standing our common foe, the devil. 

This is the meaning of the Church militant. We 
are arrayed in one vast army pledged to attack 
" the principalities and powers of evil " which are 
" going about seeking to lay waste the vineyard " 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 101 

of Christ. There are but two standards, with but 
two names — Christ and Satan. 

Herein we mark the duty of acting harmoniously 
by our prayers, our charity, our deeds of mortifica- 
tion, that these may be converted into means of 
merit and be serviceable to our brethren in the 
household of faith. We need their help as they 
need ours : " A brother that is helped by his 
brother is like a strong city." 

" That which we have seen and have heard we 
declare unto you, that you also may have fellowr 
ship with us and our fellowship may be with the 
Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ." 

The beauty and truth of the doctrine of interces- 
sory prayer are told in a verse of sublime poetry 
in the Apocalypse : " And the four and twenty 
Ancients fell down before the Lamb, having every 
one of them harps and golden vials full of odors, 
which are the prayers of the saints." 

There are common graces flowing out into the 
souls of all, through the penances. Communions 
and Masses of the company of the just. Moses 
prayed for the people as the people prayed for St. 
Peter. It is not only a supernatural but a natural 
instinct which provokes so many to take it for 
granted that there is some kind of spiritual kinship 
existing among the members of the human family 
— living and dead. Wordsworth, the Protestant 
poet, divined this truth without the aid of Catholic 
theology. In his verses, entitled " We Are Seven," 
he tells of a " cottage girl " who naturally refuses 



102 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

to consider death when speaking of her dead 
brother and sister. When she counts the members 
of the family she can think only of the dead as 
living : 

" How many are you then," said I, 
" If they two are in heaven ? " 

Quick was the little maid's reply, 
"0 master! we are seven." 

"But they are dead; those two are dead! 

Their spirits are in heaven ! " 
'Twas throwing words away; for still 
The little maid would have her will, 

And said, "Nay, we are seven! " 

How good it is to know that neither the dead nor 
the living are alone in this great world! — that 
there is in suffering as well as in triumph a bond 
of fellowship kept together and vitalized with the 
spirit of the Lord Jesus: 

" I am the Vine, you the branches." 

The living branches of this Vine are the suffer- 
ing souls in Purgatory, and those on earth who 
are in the state of grace. The dead branches are 
those that are in a state of sin. As sap is neces- 
sary for the vitality of the vine, so is Baptism 
necessary for the sanctification of all the members 
of the mystical Body of Christ — the Church : " As 
in one body we have many members, so we, being 
many, are one body in Christ." 

In the early Church the first Christians were 
called Saints. Notice the following passages from 
St. Paul's epistles: 1 Cor. xvi. 1; 2 Cor. ix. 12; 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 103 

Eph. iv. 12. They had as a title " Saints " in the 
sense that all are called to be Saints : " This is the 
Will of God, your sanctification.'* 

Amongst the early Christians, likewise, we find 
a more lively faith in the realization that we can 
be of service to that countless army of the faithful 
dead. We are nearer the dead than we can ever 
imagine. In the midst of its diabolism, fraud and 
deception, modern Spiritism indicates that the line 
which divides the visible from the invisible is very 
thin : " Are they all ministering spirits, sent to 
minister for them who shall receive the inheritance 
of salvation? " 

** When thou didst pray with tears and didst 
bury the dead, I offered thy prayer to the Lord." 

It is of faith that we are in communion with 
all, even departed souls, by helping all with our 
private and public prayers, ejaculations, alms 
deeds and our crosses suffered in the Christian 
spirit. In this manner we add something to that 
common treasury of spiritual goods from which all 
derive benefit — yes; all, even the dead who are 
members of Christ's spiritual kingdom : '^ For in 
one spirit we are all baptized into one body, 
whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free." 

This same law which binds the dead with the liv- 
ing under a common headship is discovered, by 
analogy, in the common authority and rights of 
the Church. Indeed, the Church on earth, with 
its system, government and hierarchy, is often- 
times likened to the celestial Jerusalem. " You are 



104 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

come to Mount Sion and to the City of the Living 
God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the company 
of many thousands of angels. And to the Church 
of the First-born, who are written in heaven, and 
to God, the Judge of all and to the spirits of the 
just made perfect. And to Jesus, the Mediator of 
the New Testament." 

Membership in ** the new Jerusalem come down 
upon earth " gives a faithful soul a title to share 
in the same Sacramental system, the same eternal 
Sacrifice. It gives, moreover, a right of appeal to 
God, through the intercession of the Saints and the 
angels who stand before the Great White Throne: 
" Another angel came and stood before the altar, 
having a gold censer; and there was given to him 
much incense, that he should offer of the prayers 
of all the saints upon the golden altar, which is 
before the Throne of God." 

Oh! what a glorious doctrine is this Communion 
of Saints! Once we learn its beauty and inner 
meaning we derive strength and solace in our com- 
bat with sin. How comforting it is to know that 
we are not alone in our " conflict " with " the 
powers of darkness." We have preeminently, the 
King of the Saints, His Mother and the mighty 
troops of " the elect." Although the world is 
peopled with evil spirits and the very air charged 
with sin, there is that phalanx of the redeemed just 
ever fighting for us and resisting even unto blood. 

" Call now if there be any that will answer thee 
and turn to some of the Saints." 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 105 

This is the day, the Feast of the Communion of 
Saints, when we should let our minds meditate 
upon the holy doctrine, that its practical value may 
be manifested in every action of our lives : " Till 
we all meet in the unity of faith and of the know- 
ledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto 
the measure of the age of the fullness of 
Christ." This happy consummation can only 
be brought about by " praying always with all 
prayer and supplication in the spirit and watching 
thereunto with all instance and supplication for all 
the Saints." 



THE MORAL BEAUTY OF THE CROSS. 

" If any man will come after Me, let him deny him- 
self and take up his cross and follow Me." — Matt. xvi. 

For most of us Christ's is a hard saying and 
harder still does it seem in this our day when 
science has vastly increased the appliances of lux- 
ury. We are to bless science for every excellent 
thing that it has given us, yet scientists must not 
blame us if we believe that the spirit as expressed 
by the Cross be (if not precisely at variance with 
then) out of keeping with the material benefits 
which science has conferred on mankind. Christ 
added nothing to the sum of material knowledge. 
Although the strength of His spiritual teaching has 
affected law, economics, politics and diplomacy, it 
has done so indirectly and as it were by accident. 
It is evident from His life that if He did not dis- 
regard. He certainly passed by the mighty material 
kingdom of this world. He looked up to the 
heavens and told us nothing of its immensity, its 
numberless systems, laws and forces. He pre- 
sented no opportunity for inventive genius to draw 
the electric flash from the sky and never a hint 
did He give that there are powers in the elements 
around us which if we could control, as perhaps 
we shall, would magnify the glory of speed, light 

106 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 107 

and flame, and shield us from the anticipated fear 
of all our bodily ills. 

He graced poverty, which is material and social 
death, with a dignity and composure that are in 
contradiction to the temper of commerce, for the 
improvidence of voluntary poverty is the foe of 
competition — an instrument of paralysis for trade. 
He taught the doctrine of taking no thought for 
the morrow, of considering the lilies of the field 
and the birds of the air in our anxious quest for 
raiment and food. He preached the crucifixion 
of self and the laceration of the body, whereas 
science has softened bodily suffering. It has re- 
lieved the pressure of physical pain by the sus- 
pension of consciousness. It has captured 
disease in its very germ. That the whole com- 
monwealth of the world should be awry with 
some higher and divine purpose is much less a 
mystery than that suffering should exist at all. 
Yet the cross gives something by which to meas- 
ure the hopeless tangle of misfortune in his- 
tory. The beauty of moral suffering, which is 
perceived even theoretically, is felt also per- 
sonally and practically. The burden of the Cross 
is ugly in its exterior aspect, but there is an interior 
joy which comes only to the lover who is bearing 
it for sake of the Beloved. 

A God who is not in some manner human is no 
no God for man. Christ the living God in his- 
tory has gathered every note of human sorrow 
around His Cross. With His Cross He has sounded 



108 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

every sentiment of the heart, every desire of the 
will, every thought of the intellect. To the mind of 
theology and metaphysics, suffering is a deordina- 
tion, and as such would be a defect, and could not 
cling to the calm, impassable nature of God. On 
the other hand, the unerring righteousness of the 
faithful, the sentiment of tradition, the testimony 
of Scripture, the doctrine of the Church, have 
clothed God with the majesty of human woe. But 
each opinion is a partial truth — the union of all 
gives the whole thought — that God in some super- 
eminent and exalted manner has suffered humanly, 
though without perturbing the equable character 
of the Divine Mind and Will. 

To lovers of the externally beautiful — ^they who 
seek beauty for its own sake — the Cross will ever 
be an expression of deformity, as it is a scandal to 
the wise, a hindrance to science and a stumbling- 
block to the proud. Around the Great Martyred 
Hero of a lost cause, kneel the goodly company of 
the just — not the flatterers, but the lovers of an 
ungrateful people — they who carry the Cross for 
humanity — the weepers and the men of prayer — 
they who sit by the gates and grow sad at the sins 
of the city. In the opinion of science and to the 
minds of men of action the saints must ever be 
parasites, sluggards, and the enemies of material 
progress. At the hour when Europe broke loose 
from compact Christendom there was opened out a 
new era for scientific glory. It would shake our 
faith in the divinity of the Cross if we made mere 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 109 

material success the fruitful mother of sweet con- 
tentment. 

If death were the end then assuredly science 
would be the great saviour of mankind, and the 
Cross an intrusion and a folly. But the Cross is the 
norm by which we measure the burden of human 
life. The Cross is the revelation that the God Who 
laid it upon the shoulders of humanity is the same 
God Who out of love for man, touched the acme of 
human suffering. That early sin, which what- 
ever its nature, was great enough to disturb the 
beauty of the moral order, has been atoned for. 
The God who suffered has not permitted suffering 
except that a greater good may come from it. The 
Cross is the abandoned confession from God that 
as He had loved man from the beginning, so He 
shall love him unto the end. Whatever may be the 
darkness of the mystery behind the cross, this 
much is clear, that it is a testament of God's love 
for man. 

Yet if the Cross had simply revealed God's love 
it would not explain (as it does partially), why it 
has followed humanity down the centuries. In 
the same moment that it expressed overwhelming 
love for us, it revealed the awful nature of sin. 
The malignity and character of moral evil is to be 
measured by the Cross. The primeval disturbance 
must have been deep and far-reaching since it has 
cost so much. It reared the Cross for Christ and 
cast its shadow upon all the world. 

What, then, is to be done? Shall we seek to 



no SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

escape the horrors of the cross? We cannot if we 
would. Before the revelation of the Cross flashed 
upon the world men groped about seeking a solu- 
tion for the indignities of existence. Christianity 
shed a new light upon the difficulty and lent a 
sweetness and merit to the burden of human life. 

What, then, has science done that we should 
seek its glorification at the expense of the Cross? 
The mystery of the Cross is coextensive with every 
truth of science. Even if science has dragged man 
out of the cave and put a garment on his back and 
taught him to look up at the sun, what is all that, 
when the irresistible hunger of his spirit is wear- 
ing away his flesh? Every operation of his mind 
and mood of his heart whisper that to eat, drink, 
build and breed, are not enough. Man craves some 
pledge of God's love — some emblem of immortality. 

The Cross stands as a rock in the midst of the 
sea. Petty men seek to stir up the tempest, they 
invent and reject scientific theories, then they re- 
ject and invent again without making any apolo- 
gies. The waters may clip the rough base of the 
rock, because science is from God, but this is 
permitted that it shall eventually the better bring 
out the glory and statuesque proportion of the 
Cross — the sign of our salvation in the midst of the 
storm. 



THE SIN OF DAVID. 

" To Thee only have I sinned, and have done evil 
before Thee.'*— Psalm I 6. 

This psalm is a statement of the confession and 
repentance of David after he had sinned with 
Bethsabee, the wife of Urias. In the text above he 
does not make so much of the terrible facts that 
he had degraded a weak woman; disrupted his 
army and kingdom and lost the filial love of his 
son Absalom — nor does he make prominent the 
truth that by his sin he plunged his whole soul in 
remorse and contributed to that mighty volume of 
scandal and misery which is sweeping over the 
world because of sin. The fearful thought upper- 
most in his mind is, that, the malignity of his sin 
is in his act of wilful revolt against the law of vir- 
tue, which is the shadow of God*s Being in history 
and in personal life. 

The essence of sin is in the act of disobedience 
to or in the act of revolt against the Divine Majesty. 
The idea of sin or moral evil was acknowledged by 
the noblest among the pagans and by the leaders of 
the old Oriental religions. The flashes of divine 
light in Israel's history gave the chosen people a 
deeper sense of sin, but the keenest realization of 
sin came with the revelation of Christ hanging upon 
a Cross between heaven and earth. Be did not in- 
Ill 



112 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

vent the idea of sin, but made clearer the horrors 
and profound malice of :?in. This terrible fact 
would provoke sinners to despair, were it not that 
the Cross, besides being a revelation of the malig- 
nity of sin, it is, likewise, the most eloquent expo- 
sition of God*s love for man. It is a revelation fill- 
ing us with a wholesome fear of sin and yet, at the 
same time, becoming to us a source of pardon and 
strength. 

Two resolutions are to be formed from these 
words : First, never to make little of even the least 
sin; and secondly, never to believe sin to be un- 
conquerable. 



CHRIST'S RESURRECTION AND OUR IMMOR- 
TAL BODIES. 

" And if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from 
the dead dwell in you; He that raised up Jesus Christ 
from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies, 
because of His Spirit that dwelleth in you." — Roman 
viiL 11. 

The dogma of the Resurrection is a consoling 
one, assuring us that this body will attain the fruit 
of conquest after so dreadful a conflict with the 
soul and that it will not be denied the licit satis- 
faction of its mighty and indescribable longings. 

Indeed, it is morally wholesome to believe that 
this our fleshly body, in some mysterious measure, 
shall go with us even after death. Although in 
life it is the humiliating part of our nature, never- 
theless, the spirit lacks substantial completeness 
until it is one with the body. The equilibrium ex- 
isting between these two realities was once dis- 
turbed. Since then the battle has been fiercely 
waging. The end of all rational asceticism is to 
reestablish this harmony. He Who came from on 
high clothed with the lowliness of flesh — He Who 
flashed forth from the sealed sepulchre, had for His 
purpose not only atonement for the lavv^ violated, 
but likewise the restoration of peace between body 
and soul. When Christ was nailed to the Cross sin 

113 



114 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

had done its worst. When Christ rose from the 
tomb He put to flight the forces of sin and death: 
" He routed them as with a breath of His nostrils." 
All our struggle is within the walls of the flesh. 
Even the subtlest of the higher temptations can 
be remotely traced to some latent and unbidden 
impulse of the flesh. The most delicately shaded 
moods of the imagination and heart — the most 
refined eff'orts of the will, have their beginnings in 
the flesh. Yet in the economy of the Resurrection 
— ^in the vast scheme of the Incarnation, the body 
is not disgraced or dishonored : " My covenant 
shall be in the flesh." Although the body be lower 
in degree of being than the spirit, it has relatively 
to its own purpose its own perfection. We have 
been redeemed through the flesh, the instrument 
of our weakness — the very poison has been changed 
as it were into an antidote. 

In the plan of spiritual regeneration all things 
work together unto good. There were religions of 
old, as there are erring thinkers now, who through 
shame hide the corpse under heaps of flowers and 
consign it to forgetfulness. Not so with the in- 
tegral plan of Christianity; even the shameful 
body does not suffer oblivion. 

He Who was hanged nakedly for our shame in 
the sight of men, rose from the dead to save us 
from shame. Although physically and organically 
perfect, yet because of this subtle perfection was 
He more susceptible to the keen edges of shame. 
^* There is no beauty in Him nor comeliness ; and 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 115 

we have seen Him, and there was no sightliness 
that we should be desirous of Him." 

When Christ rose from the tomb He routed the 
forces of nature and healed the ravages of sin, 
which are the sources of death : " He awaked as 
one out of a sleep and as a giant refreshed with 
wine and He smote His enemies, death and hell, 
and put them to everlasting confusion." Com- 
pared to that sense of shame, the chemical re- 
action of the thirst in His mouth or the gush- 
ing of water and blood from His Broken Heart 
were as nothing. If it were preeminently proper 
that His Body should not taste the unwholesome 
savour of the tomb, so was it meet that she, of 
whose cloistered womb He was the fruit, should 
fall asleep and miss the corruption and undignified 
dissolution of the body. Indeed, the wonderment 
would be the more vivid if it were not so. 

With us who bear in our bodies the vestiges of 
moral misfortune, it behooves us to slip into the 
cold arms of the earth for a brief season, if only 
to undergo penitence through the foul stench of 
unshriven imperfections. 

Medical science opens and peers into every bone, 
muscle, artery and joint, but the marvel of the 
human body begins only where the point of the 
dissecting knife ends. 

From the numberless troops of the unclean, as 
well as from the narrow Puritan, comes the cry of 
*' Shame ! " But the cry is fanatical or a cruel 
memory of lost chastity. To touch the ark and 



116 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

part the veil one must have clean hands. The sen- 
sation of moral horror in us is the evidence of the 
mystery of the Fall in the beginning of history, 
and the traditional relic of it which we carry in our 
bodies to this very day. 

Within this tenement of flesh and blood are 
hidden treasures so costly that the powers and 
principalities of good and evil are ever contending 
for mastery over them. 

Within the body's sacred temple is lodged the 
Holy Spirit seated as upon a throne to diffuse 
blessings, but the Babel of contradicting passions 
smothers His Voice and provokes tumult. Man's 
body stands between the creation and the Creator. 
It is the crown of the material, and the last ex- 
pression of the spiritual creation. With its crest 
sublime it touches the dome of the sky and plants 
its naked foot upon a clod of earth. It creates the 
mystery of space and defies the mystery of time. 

Within its boundless reservations there glow 
the camp-fires by night and the din of battle by 
day. 

Within its field of infinitude there is area enough 
for gaiety and despair, tragedy and wit, pathos and 
delight, hope and fear, life and death. It gathers 
all nature, art, music and poetry within the sanct- 
uary of its sensible emotions. 

The objective reality of external things would 
be dull and unresponsive were it not for the body 
which receives sense-impressions as the founda- 
tion of ideas. 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 117 

The learned discuss many intricate questions 
concerning the relative value of these two realities 
— spirit and matter. 

Much subtle thought is provoked from a study 
of the intimacy between soul and body, of their 
natures, qualities and perfection. 

The philosophic conviction is that the body and 
soul do not acquire the respective perfection of 
their natures until they are joined together. 

Whatever there is of sense perception in the soul 
has come through the avenue of the body. Only 
an act of special intervention can bestow the gifts 
of the body on the soul, when the soul is separated 
from it. However this may be, the body remains 
for us the battlefield of life's probation. Nor is it 
as it was with some ancient scholars and super- 
stitious believers, a prison incarcerating the 
celestial aspirations of the spirit, or the sole prin- 
ciple of evil.. This feeling of depression, which 
arises either from an insuflBcient study of Holy 
Writ or from a morbid sensitiveness of the havoc 
which lust is playing in the world, is not a normal 
state — the chariot is one and the steeds are of 
equal swiftness, but the charioteer is not suf- 
ficiently skilful. Heresy is but a partial truth, and 
they who taught that the body was essentially bad 
and the soul essentially good were giving to the 
world a most disastrous doctrine. The Saints, in 
their innocence, speak of their bodies as of ever- 
lasting companions. " I know that my Redeemer 
liveth; in my flesh I shall see God." 



118 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

Supernal human delight is reserved for those 
who have not profaned the tabernacle of the body 
from that early time when the baptismal dew falls 
upon the white forehead to the last hour when 
the chrism anoints the dying senses of touch, taste, 
smell and sight. They who have not abused so 
intimate a consort as the body, can know the 
ethereal bliss evoked from inviolable affection. 
Once the soul has been directed towards its proper 
object, then the body is not an enemy, but avails 
supernaturally ; for the very infirmity and mor- 
tality of the flesh is a condition of merit for the 
spirit. Through the Flesh and the Blood of Christ 
we are made partakers of the shining forth of His 
glorified and ascended Body. Somehow it shall 
yet come that this celestial light shall pierce 
through the sluggish senses of our bodies : " Every 
valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill 
shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be 
made straight, and the rough ways plain. And all 
flesh shall see the salvation of God." 

St. Theresa once told about her vision of Christ's 
transfigured Body. Whatever value may be 
attached to the vision, her description is weak, for 
she pictures His Hand as being like unto limpid 
glass. Yet, how could human speech express the 
surpassing excellence and splendor of that radiant 
Form? There may have been some providential 
reason why the prophets but vaguely trace the 
divine mission and dignity of the body. The text 
concerning the bodily translation of Enoch and 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 119 

Elias would seem to bear a strict interpretation. 
From the meagre record of the mystery of the Fall 
in the Book of Genesis we gather that that momen- 
tous temptation disturbed the state of concord 
which balanced spirit and flesh. So " the Word 
was made flesh " that man might restore, through 
grace and self-development, his flesh to a state of 
healthy relationship with his spirit. "I will pour 
out My Spirit upon all flesh." 

According to the Mind of Christ, the Christian 
moralist seeks to create the synthesis between the 
two antithetical elements — soul and matter. The 
Church, which is the mystical Body of Christ in 
living history, has for its end the extension of the 
economy of the Incarnation — the protracted re- 
demption of the flesh. In the Sacramental system, 
the flesh — the vulnerable element of our composi- 
tion — is appealed to through the senses, " He hath 
made the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak." 

As in the material world, so in the divine scheme, 
nothing is lost. The instrument of our confusion 
is captured by its own devices. Every caprice of 
the sentient body is supernaturally gratified 
through the merits of thQ Christ of the Resurrec- 
tion. Through His Resurrection, palpable to the 
senses, and through the Incarnation all things are 
bent to its service; every visible rite and ceremony; 
every dogma which is the defined expression of 
truth; every text of Scripture interpreted by author- 
ity; all speech and action, reason and imagination, 
sentiment and thought are all transformed into ele- 



120 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

ments of salvation to rectify the illusions of the 
senses of the body : " Behold, I have arisen and am 
still with thee; I am He that liveth and was dead; 
I am alive forevermore, and have the keys of hell 
and of death." 

But not alone in the nobler arts — sculpture, 
drama, painting and song is the body appealed to; 
but inanimate, material nature is sanctified to its 
uses, and so for the most part the matter of the 
Sacraments and Sacramentals is bread, wine, 
water, oil, salt, wool, cotton and wax. Moreover, 
Christian ethics even enter into the sciences of 
economics and politics, with the indirect purpose 
of consecrating them to the salvation of man's body 
from fire, plague, hunger, thirst, cruelty and injus- 
tice. 

Since, then, we are beholden to the body, let us 
look to it that we reverence it in decent fashion. It 
is for us believers the temple of the Holy Spirit; of 
immensely more historic interest than the temple 
of Jerusalem. Guard the walls of the city and the 
temple will be secure. Exercise custody, and do 
not permit the exterior senses to wander at will. 
Close all the city gates by night, so that the way- 
ward traveler with his camel cannot pass through 
the eye of a needle. 

The defilement of the human body might be 
more tragic in its consequences than the spilling of 
a prophet's blood in the portico of the temple. The 
body has its laws, prerogatives, capacities, and 
it is profoundly serious to thwart or destroy them. 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 121 

else nature will turn the throb of health to a ner- 
vous tremor and the crimson glow of youthful 
beauty to the hectic pallor of disease. 

Then, from a moral consideration, how horrible 
to think that in some manner we take with us in 
death bodily habits contracted in life; it would 
seem of momentous importance, therefore, to lay 
on the lash and whip disordered inclination into 
subservience to the sweeter instinct of the soul: 

*' Knowing that Christ rising again from the dead 
dieth no more — death shall no more have dominion 
over Him. 

For in that He died to sin He died once; but in 
that He liveth He liveth unto God; 

So do you also reckon that you are dead to sin but 
alive unto God in Christ Jesus Our Lord. 

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body so 
as to obey the lusts thereof. 

Neither yield ye your members as instruments of 
iniquity unto sin; 

But present yourselves to God as those that are 
alive from the dead; and your members as instruments 
of justice unto God. 

For sin shall not have, dominion over you; for you 
are not under the law but under grace." 

Ethical ideas such as these were even faintly 
suggested by the best of the Romans before the 
period of their moral' decline, and with the nobler 
conceptions of the more refined among the Greeks. 
In the Hecuba of Euripides, the tragic author 
paints Polyxena with her throat cut and falling on 
the steps of the altar, but conscious even in death 
of her modesty, almost instinctively, she folds de- 
cently the snow-white raiment over her limbs. It 



122 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

is the innate regard for the sanctity of the human 
body. This instinct was of course developed more 
keenly at the vision of Christ's glorified Body. 
Then, too, it was not until the advent of Christ's 
Mother that these thoughts of the high dignity of 
the human body began to be more fully realized. 
With vestal grace she combined in her virginal 
maternity the honorable dignities of the matron 
with the unspeakable charms of the virgin. So, 
indeed, she missed corruption, for the Holy One 
would not suffer her to see corruption : 

" Therefore, holding a little thy soft breath. 
Thou underwent'st the ceremony of death." 

What is true of the Mother of Christ is, in this 
circumstance, preeminently true of her Son — since 
He was bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh. 
The jaundiced eye of modern heresy has weakened 
our visual power and sought to cloud this mag- 
nificent truth; and because heresy is the most 
mortal of sins it has colored with sickly hue things 
that are fair and excellent in themselves. So in 
times past moralists taught differently; their 
methods for the cultivation of ethical virtue were 
not so prohibitive and negative. They taught chas- 
tity not so much by the suppression of desire as by 
the presentation to the will of a pure object and 
the proper direction of the tide of passion. Conse- 
quently, modern life, outside of Catholic asceticism, 
knows nothing of the ardor that is virginal. Yet 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 123 

ancient and mediaeval Catholicism gave us saints 
thrice widow^ed who their 

'^Birth-times' consecrating dew 
For death's sweet chrism retained, 
Quick, tender, virginal, and unprofaned." 

From the ancient day when Cecilia so shone with 
the splendor of moral sanctity that Valerian could 
no longer look upon her, to the mediaeval time when 
Henry, king as well as saint, knelt a slave to the 
virtue of his queen, it was a familiar doctrine. 

Small wonder, then, that the Church, the Mysti- 
cal Bride of Christ, should (at the early glimmer 
of the Easter dawning) abandon herself to trans- 
ports of joy and praise. She would even call upon 
inanimate art and nature to rejoice and be glad 
with her. The splendid revelation of man's trans- 
figured body would never have been manifested if 
Christ's Body had rotted in a Syrian grave. But He 
allowed His Sacred Body — ^blood, bone, muscle and 
tissue — to be profaned upon a gibbet of protracted 
agony and committed to the murky confines of 
the tomb, as a bleeding, mangled corpse — all, but 
to rise again, that by this He might open out a 
new and startling era for the history of the human 
body : " And when I had seen Him, I fell at His 
feet, as dead. And He laid His right Hand upon 
me, saying : Fear not, I am the First and the Last — 
and alive and was dead and behold, I am living for- 
ever and ever.*'* 

We can no better conclude than with a sentence 



124 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

from the searching sermon of Cardinal Newman 
on " The Resurrection of the Body." He says, in 
his own marvelous fashion : " Glorious, indeed, will 
be the springtime of the Resurrection, when, all 
that seemed dry and withered will bud forth and 
blossom. The glory of Lebanon will be given it, 
the excellency of Carmel and Sharon; the fir tree 
for the thorn, the myrtle tree for the briar ; and the 
mountains and the hills shall break forth, before 
us, in singing. Who would miss being of that com- 
pany? " 

There is a curious old book of the Middle Ages 
called ** Legenda Aurea." It is said to be compiled 
and put in form about the year 1275 by Jacobus de 
Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa, and done into the 
English of the time by William Caxton. It is a 
work remarkable for its learning and spiritual 
beauty. Of Our Lord's Resurrection it has a state- 
ment written in quaint old English, which suc- 
cinctly expresses the authoritative teaching con- 
cerning the glory of the human body in the light of 
Our Saviour's rising from the dead. The words 
are : " At evensong time shall be weeping, and on 
the morn gladness and joy. The gloss saith that 
the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is cause suJBficient 
of the resurrection of souls in this present time 
and of the bodies in time to come." 

The diflBculty of believing the doctrine of bodily 
resurrection is not founded in reason but in the 
imagination, when under the spell and play of the 
senses. But imagination is not reason. The mys- 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 125 

tery of the human body is as imperious and urgent 
as the spirit itself, for what do we know of the sub- 
stance of the human body? The accidents are all 
we perceive of it, and these only remotely. 

Deep down beneath the frailty, degradation and 
enfeeblement of the human body there is the latent 
force and vital spirit of the Christ triumphant over 
corporal dissolution; hence the human body can- 
not be forever holden of death : " I shall not die, 
but live and declare the works of the Lord." It is 
the terrific presence of physical decomposition, the 
chemistry of rottenn.ess, which provokes us to 
doubt this truth. The form once aglow and quiv- 
ering with warmth and expressiveness is pallid, 
motionless, cold. As pitiable mourners we hound 
that lean, emaciated carcass to the grave. We note 
the systematic advances^ — the gnav^ing,r ruinous 
agencies of decay — then, spiritual sight having 
failed us, we end by proclaiming that the earth 
has forever consumed the body once so lovely and 
so fair. Now it was to deal with this gigantic diflB- 
culty that €hrist burst forth from the guarded 
tomb. " He has broken the gates of brass and smit- 
ten the bars of iron in sunder." How beautifully 
is this truth of the transcendent human body ex- 
pressed in the Book of holy Job : " And I shall be 
clothed again with my skin and in my flesh I shall 
see my God ! " 



THE WOMAN THAT WAS HEALED. 

"And behold a woman, who was troubled with an 
issue of blood twelve years, came behind Him and 
touched the hem of His garment. For she said within 
herself: If I shall touch only the hem of His garment 
I shall be healed. But Jesus turning and seeing her, 
said: *Be of good heart, daughter, thy faith hath 
made thee whole.' And the woman was made whole 
from that hour,"— Matt, ix. 20-22. 

It was a day in which Jesus was on the way 
to the house of Jairus. This ruler of the syna- 
gogue had an only daughter, twelve years old, who 
was dying. And it happened that as the Master 
went, great multitudes of people thronged about 
Him. In the crowd there was a sickly woman 
who had suffered for twelve years. She had be- 
stowed her substance upon physicians and was in 
no wise bettered, but rather grew worse. She was 
perhaps in the motly shouting crowd merely out 
of motives of curiosity, or touched by superstition. 
Though her faith was sincere, she had, neverthe- 
less, a gross idea of the healing power of Christ. 
She must have reduced it to some magnetic in- 
fluence or magical virtue which existed apart from 
His Holy Will — for she said within herself : " If 
I shall touch only the hem of His garment I shall 
be healed." This desire was the excess of faith 
and, therefore, not wholly culpable. The aroma 

126 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 127 

of Christ's sanctity must have diffused itself 
abroad. If nothing else, He was holy, and there- 
fore, naturally and supernaturally attractive to 
her. Such a wondrous Man she may have believed 
to have not only such power from God, but like- 
wise that native sanctity even rested on the blue 
border of His garment. Moreover for the Jew 
there was a sacred symbolism attached to the color 
of the wide fringe on the Levite's robe. " Speak 
to the children of Israel and thou shalt tell them 
to make to themselves fringes in the corners of 
their garments, putting in them ribands of 
blue." 

Therefore the woman's faith, although acci- 
dentally imperfect, was essentially true. The hem 
of Our Lord's garment was the instrument of heal- 
ing to the diseases of her body. He, Himself, was 
the Healer. She stealthily came behind Him and 
touched that sacred hem, and instantly she felt 
in her body that she was healed. Ah, what a 
gracious relief for her who had secretly borne so 
much! Then, as in our times, there were dishon- 
est remedies for all species of disorders pressed 
upon the credulous and the unwary. Medical 
science, and, least of all, surgery, was not as ad- 
vanced as it is now. Medicine is an empiric science 
and its modern teachers ought to be the humblest 
of men and ever ready to bow in reverence to the 
mysteries of the human organism. The woman's 
recovery was too instantaneous and out of the ordi- 
nary to be natural. Such a favor could only come 



128 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

out of heaven, and it demanded some sacrifice on 
the part of the recipient. 

So the Lord Christ, tender as well as just, ex- 
torted from her a confession of her weakness and 
her cure. " And Jesus said : * Somebody hath 
touched Me; for I know that virtue is gone out 
from Me.' " Indeed our blessed Lord asked di- 
rectly : " Who is it that touched Me? " St.Peter and 
those that w§re with Him denied that they had 
done so. So vehement were the multitudes that 
thronged and pressed about the Master, that His 
disciples could not tell who it was that took hold 
of His robe. Yet the woman was not hidden, for 
some in the crowd must have marked her. She 
came forth at the searching sight of Jesus. She 
could no longer deny — in reverent love there are 
no secrets — and so, trembling, she threw herself 
at the feet of Christ. Then she made her confes- 
sion. There in the face of that ungracious rabble 
she declared for what cause she had striven to 
touch the tassel of Christ's garment, and that when 
she touched it she was immediately healed. It 
would have been a more severe discipline if she 
had been compelled to confess her misfortune be- 
fore she had been cured. 

It was not in the nature of things that such a 
joyous miracle should be wrought independently 
of the spiritual state of the patient. The interior 
gifts of grace need our personal cooperation to 
bear fruit within the garden of the soul. Acknowl- 
edgment of such a boon was the condition of its 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 129 

final success. Not apart from Christ's desire was 
she healed. He willed that she should come out 
from her hiding place and manifesting that she 
was in a state of repentance, her pardon would be 
the freer. Consonant with perfect truth He simu- 
lated ignorance, as a playful father might evoke 
an apology from his Vvayward child. " Nathanael 
saith to Him, Whence knowest Thou me? Jesus 
answered and said to him: Before that Philip 
called thee, when thou was under the fig tree, I 
saw thee. Nathanael answered Him and said : Rab- 
bi, Thou art the Son of God, Thou art the King of 
Israel.'* There was an ethical motive in drawing 
an acknowledgment from the woman who was 
healed. 

Religion will, accidentally, in small matters, de- 
generate into superstition. The shame of the 
woman that was healed was natural, but her hope 
and love were greater. " She came behind Him 
and touched the hem of His garment." To attain 
spiritual blessings it is not enough to believe the 
faith of Christ with the intellect, or to love it with 
the heart — it must, likewise, be professed with the 
lips. " She came behind Him and touched the hem 
of His garment." With the solace of sweet speech 
Jesus said to the sorrowing woman : " Be of good 
heart, daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole." 
" And the woman was made whole from that 
hour." 

" For she said within herself : ' If I touch only 
the hem of His garment I shall be healed/ " The 



130 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

influence of personality, of mind over matter, and 
of health-giving suggestion, may, at times, be a 
licit instrument for good, in anointed hands and 
under the guidance of him who has the divine au- 
thority to use it. The self-abasement of the com- 
plaining woman was not the keenest misfortune 
she sufifered. Unskillful doctors, and perhaps false 
prophets and would-be wise men, played upon the 
weak and believing with their unwholesome medi- 
cines and diabolic systems. To Christ must we go 
to stanch the ever-flowing fountain of evil. 
Through Him the ordinances of His Church be- 
come secondary implements for healing our moral 
and physical ailments. To touch the tassel of a 
sacred garment, to kiss a relic of a saint, to 
wear a scapular or the medal of a friend, or 
to keep as a pious token a flower taken from 
the sanctuary, may be remote acts which will even- 
tually turn the face of Christ upon us while we 
hurry along in the vulgar and irreligious crowd. 
"For she said within herself: *If I shall touch 
only the hem of His garment, I shall be healed.* " 
Now there is another truth to be gathered from 
this text. Physical disease is, very often, the re- 
sult of sin in ourselves, our ancestors, or others. 
Its cure, very often, is in the pardon of personal 
sin. Hence, those approved teachers of the Church, 
the theologians, speak of the medicinal character 
of the Sacrament of Penance. Mark, how the heal- 
ing of the woman's disease was of supernatural 
origin — faith was one of the causes, eradicating a 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 131 

physiological misfortune. The required condition 
for the cure was moral. The sickly woman was 
provoked to conquer false shame, human respect 
and to confess the existence of her weakness. 
**Who is it that touched Me? For I know that 
virtue has gone out from Me." There is always 
a close alliance between sin — the disease of the 
soul — and the humors of the body. 

Among the modern religious systems, Christian 
Science and Faith-healing play a part. Now, there 
is no religious truth in any system which does not 
exist in an eminent and concentrated degree in 
the economy of our holy Faith. Physical pain is, 
partially, subjective in many instances. Some- 
times the healing is in administering religious 
peace — ^peace of mind and peace of heart com- 
ing from the relief of the worry of sin. Another 
Evangelist, writing of this event, represents Our 
Redeemer as saying to the sickly woman : " Thy 
faith hath made thee whole; go in peace." 

It is most reasonable to look to Our Saviour's 
religion for some approved and stated method for 
helping the sick, for assisting sinners in acquiring 
sorrow, in laying the foundations of a new life, and 
finally imparting to them the assurance of the 
divine pardon. The touch of the garment is, 
as it were, the external ministry of Christ's re- 
ligion and it is endowed, as the fringe of the gar- 
ment was endowed, with His holiest prerogative 
of friendship. The New Testament confirms rea- 
son; it shows that the pardon of sins is to be set- 



132 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

tied by means of an external ministry, which St. 
Paul terms the ministry of reconciliation. All of 
Christ's words and all of His acts have some ref- 
erence to the disease of sin and its pardon — for 
His office and name is Saviour ! Therefore He says 
to St. Peter and afterward to the twelve : "Whatso- 
ever you shall bind on earth it shall be bound in 
heaven; whatsoever you shall loose on earth it 
shall be loosed in heaven." He refers to the deal- 
ing with sin and sinners. When He said to St. Peter, 
"I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of 
heaven," He meant the keys that would unlock the 
gate that shuts men up in the hell of sin. To this 
day the power of the keys means the power of 
pardoning sinners — ^bestowing that subjective 
peace of mind, heart and will, which reacts on the 
physical organism and remotely contributes to the 
health and well-being of the human body. To this 
day, the priest says, with sacramental authority, 
what Christ said: "Go in peace." 

"Who is it that touched Me?" Power of pardon 
includes a right to know what is to be pardoned. 
How could it be used intelligently otherwise? How 
can the Christian minister know whether the sin- 
ner is worthy of pardon or must be refused it, un- 
less he knows what sins the penitent has been 
guilty of? Consider how many things bear a part 
in making sorrow true or false (and sorrow must 
ever be the essential thing), ignorance, worldli- 
ness, pride, feebleness of character, frivolity, false 
shame, even hypocrisy, self-deceit, excitement, hu- 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 133 

man respect, slavish fear. How can these be con- 
sidered unless one knows, as it were, the disease — 
the penitent's sins? Suppose you had heard Christ 
saying to His Apostles, "Whose sins you shall for- 
give they are forgiven them; whose sins you shall 
retain, they are retained;" and afterwards had 
asked an Apostle to impart pardon to you; would 
you have been surprised if he had said: "My son, 
what is it you want me to pardon?" One cannot 
but be an intermediary of pardon, especially when 
one's chief office is to decide on the validity 
of shame and sorrow — " Who is it that touched 
Me? For I know that virtue has gone out of 
Me." 

"If I shall touch only the hem." Confession 
answers a need in human nature. Sinners need 
healing, external attention, admonition, comfort, 
warning, encouragement, while striving to reform, 
to be cured, all of which supposes a knowledge of 
the disease and of what grade and number of 
sins they have committed. An intelligent, effica- 
cious and comforting exercise of this ministry ne- 
cessitates confession. For a thorough-going pro- 
cess of moral cure, of self-discovery, all must ad- 
mit the Catholic process is most efficient — the prac- 
tical side of contrition and amendment is well 
cared for. 

Besides this, there are special psychological rea- 
sons for confession of personal weakness and 
worry. Every strong feeling demands expression. 
The soul which cannot tell its grief is doubly 



134 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

grieved; he who cannot express his joy is but half 
rejoiced. Hence, there is hardly one denomination 
of Christians but has some sort of manifestation 
of conscience, some confession of sin to the church 
members or to the ministry, as a preparation for 
membership. Sin is the universal evil of our race; 
strictly speaking, sin is the only evil in the world 
— not excepting physical evil. And who can say 
that some time or other he has not offended God 
grievously, mortally? This thought, when we fully 
realize it, robs us of our good health, our physical 
composure, our peace of mind and embitters our 
every day. How shall I be rid of this nervous 
worry, this poisonous sting of remorse and self- 
hatred? Whatever answer is made, that answer is 
associated with the word "confession." "Who is 
it that touched Me?" 

It is related of St. Francis Solano, the Span- 
ish Saint of South America, that through his means 
a poor woman was cured of an issue of blood. 
There was an Indian settlement in Sokotonio, Peru, 
and the drinking water ran dry. St. Francis 
feared that if the Indians changed the location of 
the settlement they would lose their religious 
faith, which, as yet, was not strong. He prayed as 
only a Saint can pray and sweet water gushed from 
the green earth. Even in the present day, the 
Spaniards and the Indians call the spot the "Well 
of St. Solanus." It was to this well that a sickly 
woman, of Potosi, came, walking many miles. 
Through the intercession of the Saint she was in- 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 135 

stantly healed, although she was afflicted for many 
years. 

The Saints are with us in the church today, and 
the healing prerogative — that divine gift — has 
never been taken away. We must not forget the 
curative or medicinal quality of Sacramental Pen- 
ance and prayer. "For she said within herself: 
*If I shall touch only the hem of His garment, I 
shall be healed.' " 



OUR BLESSED LADY. 

" And thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that out 
of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed." — Luke ii. 
35. 

The Mother of Christ presents an ideal such as 
the noblest of the Greeks, the purest pagans that 
ever lived, had never dreamed of. She ennobles 
human affection by lifting the ideal of human sen- 
timent. If we do not exercise our affections in God 
— if the source of all sentiment be not in God and 
God be not the term of all the heart's emotions, 
then all sentiment becomes mere idolatry. In 
Christ's Mother the term of affection was Christ 
Himself, and He was God, and she exercises this 
affection in the expression of two qualities, the two 
offices of woman in history — virginity and mater- 
nit5^ We venerate the virginal state and the ma- 
ternal, but in her these two qualities are combined 
in their essential unity. Glorious mystery to be ac- 
cepted by reason and by faith, and while it is a mys- 
tery, it is no less wonderful than the union of the 
two nature in her Son — the union of the human 
and divine. Thus the redeemed humanity, like the 
unfallen, stands before us in a two-fold aspect. 
The virginal maternity has given to Christian con- 
duct a standard which the world of itself could not 
give. There it sits in the very heart of Christian- 

136 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 137 

ity, there it is lodged as upon a throne and thence 
it dispenses blessings to those who have the grace 
and light of reason to accept it. In the religions of 
the East they have shadowed forth something of 
this mystery. The Greeks had yearned for it, and 
in the Greek tragedies the noblest conceptions of 
womanhood are found. But the Greeks never be- 
lieved that it was capable of realization in the flesh. 
Thus this ideal has elevated the intelligence of 
man and proportionately raised his imagination. 
It roused the imagination of man by the revelation 
of beauty — beauty tender, yet simple, gladsome yet 
pathetic. Everywhere throughout the world of 
architecture, painting and sculpture shone out that 
beauty. And what was it? Simply the Mother of 
Christ — the vision of the Madonna — ^which all the 
nations have expressed beautifully in the noblest 
of their arts. The doctrine if rightly understood 
is supremely reasonable. The Body of Christ 
might have been made from the slime of the earth 
like the body of the first Adam. But no; God 
willed it otherwise. He made a woman part of the 
redemptive plan. Thus the idea of the virginal 
maternity of Christ's Mother is the sublimation of 
human love. 



ON THE ROAD TO BETHANIA. 

*And seeing a certain flg-tree by the wayside. He 
came to it, and found nothing but leaves only and He 
saith to it: May no fruit grow on thee henceforward 
forever. And immediately the fig-tree withered away." 
— Matt, xxi, 19. 

It was the day after Palm Sunday, or rather the 
evening of the Monday of Holy Week — that our 
Saviour on His way to Bethania saw a fig tree near 
the road, covered before its time with leaves. He 
was hungry and looking for fruit on it but He 
found nothing thereon. He then cursed it. On 
Tuesday morning — as He and His Apostles were 
returning to Jerusalem they saw the fig tree dried 
up from the roots. 

We are not, just now, so much concerned with 
Our Lord's transcendant influence over the laws 
of the natural world. He knew the secret of life 
in the tree. If a man, however virtuous, should go 
into Central Park, and curse a tree during one of 
these pleasant mornings, we feel sure that the tree 
would be quite as green and full of life the follow- 
ing morning. Neither are we interested, for our 
purpose, with the destructive nature of the miracle, 
nor with the question of the invasion of the rights 
of property by the blasting of the tree nor with 
the study of Our Redeemer's physical disappoint- 
ment in finding leaves and not fruit. Our desire 

138 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 139 

is to make the application of the Parable personal 
unto ourselves. 

When Christ cursed the tree He was acting sym- 
bolically. Israel, with its advantages, was an un- 
fruitful fig tree and the Messiah came seeking fruit 
amid the leaves of promise. He comes today, as 
of old, seeking fruit in the soul of every man who 
has had the advantages of a spiritual education. 
This fig tree was in a sunny spot and the leaves 
came out prematurely in the month of March — the 
young fig should have been simultaneous with the 
budding leaves. The fig tree gave unusual prom- 
ise, so to speak, which it did not fulfill. 

The moral training of one young spirit is a pro- 
cess of development just as systematic as the 
growth of a fig tree. With the leaves there should 
be the practical expression of right moral conduct. 

May this day be the beginning of a life fruitful 
in good works — not a life possessing the knowledge 
of Christian doctrine and making no application of 
it in personal character — but a life, like the good 
fig tree, having leafage and fruitage together — re- 
ligion and morality. Then no blight shall come — 
nor will our life wither away to the roots before 
the Face of Christ at the last day. 



SPIRITUAL ADVANTAGES. 

"Unless your justice abound more than that of the 
Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall not enter into the king- 
dom of heaven." — Matt, v. 20. 

Permit me to freely paraphrase the text in this 
manner: unless your virtue be more genuine than 
that of those outside of the one fold, you shall 
not receive your reward. 

Why should this be? 

Because within that one integral form of Chris- 
tianity the spiritual advantages are so far in excess 
of all other partial forms of Christianity that much 
more is demanded of its members. If much be 
given much will be required. Let me indicate 
briefly one or two of these advantages. Of that 
mystical Body of Christ, the Church, we are the 
members, and from His Blood we draw that spir- 
itual nutriment — grace — just as the branch draws 
its life from the sap of the tree. 

We have the Sacraments — those channels of in- 
terior life, which follow us throughout our spir- 
itual career — from Baptism which, lifting us out 
of the state of nature to the supernatural (gives an 
atoning merit to our every act), to Extreme Unc- 
tion, which consecrates every physical sense, eye, 
ear, nose, hands and feet of our sinful bodies. 

Not only the soul and body, but the mind also 

140 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 141 

is safeguarded by that criterion of interpretation 
which secures every dogma and perplexing text of 
the sacred books. So much for ourselves, but 
others too aid us; not only the intercommunica- 
tion of sanctity from the Communion of Saints, 
but the participation in the good works and pray- 
ers of all the faithful. 

Furthermore, through the Sacramentals, external 
nature becomes a means of grace to us, salt, oil, 
wax, wool and water, so that there is a hallowing 
power in the beasts of the field and every clod of 
earth. Not only this, but there is also consecra- 
tion in the chiselled stone of the altar — in every 
mood of religious emotion provoked by the voice 
of a musical instrument — in every sound of a 
blessed bell. 

This brings me to speak of the Angelus bell in 
the towers of our churches, monasteries and con- 
vents. When it rings three times a day, stop in 
the midst of your work, just as Our Lady stopped 
her work when drawing water from the well, to 
hear the angel's voice. 

But this may not be quite to the point — the one 
brief lesson that I am trying to teach is this : That 
since we are part of this all-embracing economy of 
religion — ^the Catholic Church — with its excep- 
tional spiritual advantages over all other sects of 
Christendom, we are bound to manifest the fruits 
of our advantages by the good example of practical 
virtue among our fellowmen. 



RENDER TO CAESAR. 

"Then He saith to them: render to Caesar the 
things which are Caesar's, and to God the things which 
are God's."— Matt. xxii. 21, 

This text tells the story of the Herodians seeking 
to provoke popular tumult and to ensnare Jesus 
in His speech. They were eager to bring confusion 
in the minds of the people concerning the then 
important subject of the prerogatives of the Ro- 
man government, as against the claims of the Syn- 
agogue, which at Jerusalem was the organized ex- 
pression of religion. In this, our day, we would 
speak of the same situation as the question of the 
relationship of Church and State. 

Our Saviour, knowing the secrets of their hearts, 
warded off any possibility of misinterpretation of 
His words by asking for a coin of the tribute. Then 
noting the inscription on it, He asked whose it was, 
and they answered Him: "Caesar's." Then said 
He: "Render to Caesar the things that are Caes- 
ar's, and to God the things that are God's." 

Thus in a few words does our Blessed Lord 
make clear the solution of that problem which has 
asserted itself all through history — the struggle of 
Church and State. Each institution has its own 

142 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 143 

rights within its own department of action, and 
one should not conflict with the other. A good, 
consistent Christian makes a good citizen. In pro- 
portion as a Christian is faithful to the laws of the 
Church and obedient to the dictates of his con- 
science, so is he the more on the alert to do his 
public and personal duty to the State and keep 
exalted the standards of public morality amongst 
the officials of the State. It was that rabble in the 
days of Christ which shouted : "We shall have no 
King but Caesar.*' This is a cry heard in some of 
the countries of Europe today. How infinitely 
better it would be for mankind if the cry was 
rather this : "We shall have no King but a Caesar 
ruled by a greater King Christ." Patriotism, love 
of country, is not only a pagan, but a Christian 
virtue. It is by no reckless combination of circum- 
stances that we are born, under Providence, in one 
particular country rather than another. God has 
His designs in every circumstance and moment of 
our lives. To love our own people and our own 
home and country is a natural instinct conse- 
crated and approved of by the example of Our Re- 
deemer, weeping over the city of Jerusalem. He 
wept over it not only because of the coming de- 
struction of the temple; not only because Jeru- 
salem was a great wilderness of the souls of men 
and women, but He wept over it because He loved 
the country in which He was born. Jerusalem 
was the heart and head of the whole nation, and 
much more so than Paris is of France, or London 



144 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

of England, or New York of the American Repub- 
lic. We see the picture of Jesus weeping over His 
country and instantly we are reminded of the Hu- 
manity of God — the human note in the mystery 
of the Incarnation. In the midst of His tears, His 
melancholy words to Jerusalem are applicable to 
us this very day: "If thou didst but know in this, 
thy day, the things belonging to thy peace, but now 
they are hidden from thine eyes." 



THE PEACE OF OUR LORD. 

"Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you; 
not as the world giveth do I give unto you. Let not 
your heart be troubled nor let it be afraid." — John xiv. 
27. 

Christ alone could say that union with His Will 
would bring peace. There is sublime self-assert- 
iveness in His statement. If it startles it is be- 
cause Christ is Divine and the world does not un- 
derstand His saying. We have heard it said and 
we know that the world does not give peace. 
Christ's assertion is repeated often but it touches 
the hearts of few. We fancy that the conditions 
for gaining peace are too severe — that the yoke is 
not sweet or the burden light. So we drag our- 
selves through a weary life and die without hav- 
ing tasted even a little of the sweetness of Christ's 
truth. How is such a gift to be gained? Is it a 
boon reserved only for mystics or for the spiritu- 
ally great? No, it is a common right of every fol- 
lower of Christ. Indeed peace of heart sits more 
easily upon the plain people who lead simple lives. 
Its secret lies in making the one critical act of 
human life — the act of absolute abandonment to 
the Divine Will. Until this act is made and be- 
comes a permanent condition of the soul, life has 
very little value, less merit and no peace. Strange 
doctrine this, yet if men would accept it, it would 

145 



146 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

cast a new light over a dark world. Social and 
physical ills would be softened and the poor would 
become rich in spirit and the rich gentle of heart. 
Why permit life's carping cares to vex us when by 
a mere change of mind or heart we are strength- 
ened to look upon them with grace and composure. 
This is not mysticism, but a truth comprehended 
and experienced by rude intellects and simple 
hearts. To make the Divine Will the measure of 
every thought, word and deed of the past, present 
and future is not so difficult or unintelligible. 

At first it is acquired by repeated acts of the will 
until it naturally becomes an habitual state of the 
mind, and the heart enjoys a gracious sense of pro- 
found peace. This gift can thrive — even when the 
soul is disturbed by violent temptation — as the 
deeps of the sea may not be affected by the tur- 
bulence of its surface. If the bed rock of all ac- 
tion be founded in the Divine Will, the cruelty of 
the tempest is of little import to the soul. A truth 
such as this is very comforting to those who suf- 
fer — to those who are sensitive about the past and 
apprehensive of the future. By one prayer of en- 
tire submission to the Divine Will we can turn to 
meritorious account all the follies, mistakes, im- 
perfections and sins of our past lives. Concern- 
ing the future there is even more solace in Christ's 
sentiment: "Let not your heart be troubled, nor 
let it be afraid." He Who has counted the hairs of 
our head and controls the fall of the sparrow is 
responsible for our lives if we resign them into 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 147 

His keeping. We presume upon nothing, yet we 
are confident of everything when the spring of all 
our motives works harmoniously with the Divine 
Will. This is the rest which the world cannot give. 
"Not as the world giveth do I give unto you." This 
doctrine is not mysticism and still less is it Quiet- 
ism. It does not suspend action on the part of the 
individual soul. It is an experimental truth and 
must be tasted before we can relish it. If it ap- 
pears curious it is because we are worldlings and 
the ways of the soul have no part with the world. 
Heavenly peace is the inevitable result of a life in 
accordance with the Divine Will. Christ has said 
it — some men believe it, but few have felt it. 



THE MUSTARD SEED. 

** The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of must- 
ard seed which a man took and sowed in his field." 
Matt. xiii. 31, 

Usually this Parable is interpreted as express- 
ing the petty beginning and extensive growth of the 
Christian Church in the world. But it will have 
a closer application to ourselves if we look upon 
it as a type representing the processes of life in 
our souls under the action of grace. The life of 
grace is an organic growth subject to the slow and 
gradual developments of certain spiritual laws. 
As there is no such thing as a sudden fall so there 
are no sudden conversions. What we regard as 
sudden is in reality the first visible result of the 
secret workings of the Holy Spirit in the soul. 

The grain of mustard seed had passed through a 
long series of natural operations before it mani- 
fested itself even a little. Equally so is it in the 
history of the soul. How obdurate and painful 
are those conflicts and failures in our combat with 
sin. We struggle on sometimes gaining a partial 
triumph and more times seemingly being con- 
quered. Yet beneath all this there is progress if 
the purpose and intention to reform remain firm 
and fixed upon God. We are disheartened at the 
slowness and secrecy of the action of virtue. We 

148 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 149 

would have the mustard seed "which, indeed, is 
the least of all seeds," burst from the earth and 
blossom in a day, forgetting those periods of cor- 
ruption through which it must pass before it shows 
its first glint of green. So, too, must we be tried in 
the fire of defeat and humiliation before we can 
experience even the least spiritual satisfaction. 
The one thing needful is not to lose courage and 
least of all never to submit to despair. 

Moreover, it is worth noting that the grain of 
mustard seed was placed in the earth by a power ex- 
ternal to itself — " which a man took and sowed in 
his field." If the mustard seed received the first 
impetus to growth, not from itself but from an- 
other, so does man receive his spiritual life from 
Him Who entered in and elevated nature to the 
life of grace. Of ourselves we can do nothing. 
According to nature we are hungry and naked. We 
need some strong, beneficent Hand to feed and 
clothe our sickly and wounded souls. The Arm 
of the Lord is not shortened. The external appli- 
cation of God*s help makes possible those moral 
victories which man of himself could never attain. 
The capacity for growth in the mustard seed and 
the care exercised by the Sower bring about the 
desired result. The perfect cooperation of the life 
of nature and of grace bring about the ideal type 
of the Christian. 

It is likewise quite necessary that we render 
our souls susceptible to the influences of grace, 
just as the slime of the earth bent all its power for 



150 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

the productive generation of the mustard seed. 
The discipline of mortification and prayer make 
the soul more pliable and alive to the transforming 
operations of grace. 

Three things of value, therefore, are to be gath- 
ered from the Parable of the Mustard Seed: first, 
that progress in virtue is slow but nevertheless 
sure, and sometimes hidden from ourselves; sec- 
ond, that unaided, nature is unable to make 
progress in virtue; and third, that progress in virtue 
needs the condition of cooperation on the part of 
the one desiring to reform. 



THE CRY IN THE SYNAGOGUE. 

" And in the synagogue there was a man who had an 
unclean devil and he cried out with a loud voice, say- 
ing : * Let us alone what have we to do with thee, Jesus 
of Nazareth? * ''—Luke iv. 33, 34, 

Our Blessed Lord had come into Capharnaum, 
a city of Galilee, and it being on a Sabbath day 
He went to the synagogue and sat among the 
teachers, *' and they were astonished at His doc- 
trine, for," says Sacred Writ : " His speech was with 
power." 

While all were listening to Him in breathless 
silence a man in the crowd cried out: "Let us 
alone, what have we to do with thee, Jesus of 
Nazareth? " 

Some may have theories with regard to 
demoniacal possession, but there is a broader in- 
terpretation of this text to which all, believer and 
unbeliever, can readily submit — ^it is this. 

If the cry of the man in the synagogue " Let 
us alone '* partially voiced the sentiment of 
Judaism it likewise expressed the moral attitude 
of Paganism towards Christ at the moment when 
He took His place among the religious teachers of 
the world. 

To be sure, there is no comparison between 

151 



152 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

the morality of Judaism and Paganism. It may 
be that the enduring power and glorious success 
of the Jewish people in the modern world can be 
referred to their adherence to the moral principles 
of the Mosaic Code. 

Be this as it may, Greece, with all its human 
refinement, and the Roman Empire, with all its 
imperial strength, could and did cry out when 
there loomed up the white apparition of the chaste 
Christ : " Let us alone, what have we to do with 
Thee, Jesus of Nazareth? " 

It may not be amiss to mark, although it is a 
common-place among scholars, that the flower of 
material civilization was full-blown and fairest in 
Greece and Rome at the time when the standard 
of morality was lowest. 

It may teach us to remember that the moral 
life of our own dear Republic of the West is not 
to be measured by the fact that we have extended 
our empire across the seas and bestowed upon 
other races the benefits of our material genius. 

The question of morality is a large one and 
still wider and deeper is the mystery of the Incar- 
nation. 

We shall confine ourselves to one department of 
morals, viz: Social purity, and show how the doc- 
trine of Christ being God has enriched the modern 
world with this shining virtue. There are, of 
course, signs even now and here which remind us 
that " the Canaanite is still in our land," but the 
blackest records of modern moral depravity are as 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 153 

light compared to the darkness of the moral world 
when Christ the Sun of Purity flashed upon the 
horizon. 

It is very consoling to find, if not a faint blush 
of shame, nevertheless, a sense of secretiveness 
beneath all that is obscene in modern art, science, 
life and literature. 

Things regarded as gross sensualism now, 
would have been taken as matters of course, by 
such pure and noble pagans as Plato and Marcus 
Aurelius. This gives us a faint idea of what the 
vehemence of that surging sea of passion must 
have been when the Lord Christ stepped upon 
its waters and whispered : " Peace, be still, it 
is I." 

It is not inaccurate to say that all that is ethically 
ideal in modern Scepticism flows directly from the 
limpid fountain of the Christian system of 
morality. Agnosticism cannot construct principles 
of moral conduct except those built upon the pre- 
sumption that human nature can of itself resist 
temptations against the holy virtue of purity. But 
you and I, and, if I may say it, Jesus Christ, in- 
finitely above us, knew better than that. He knew 
that it is impossible for nature of itself to be chaste, 
because of that primeval accident when man some- 
where and somehow revolted from the Light and 
Source of Everlasting Purity. How then harmonize 
the severity of His moral doctrine with His ex- 
quisite tenderness in the treatment of sin? 

He Who struck at the spring of moral opera- 



154 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

tion with the terrific statement : " He who looketh 
upon a woman to lust after her hath already com- 
mitted adultery with her in his heart," is the same 
sweet Christ Who shielded the adulteress under the 
mantle of human sympathy. They who were eager 
to put her to death skulked away at the world-wide 
accusation : " Let him who is without sin cast the 
first stone." Would it not be a cruel and imprac- 
ticable teaching to impose upon humanity the 
beauty of an ideal, knowing that nature had not the 
capacity wherewith to attain it? Would not Christ 
have only tortured the morally sensitive spirits 
among men, by manifesting the unrivalled splendor 
of His own chastity and leaving weak nature with- 
out succor in its fierce struggle with the flesh? 
If He meant to be only an exemplar of perfect 
purity He would have added nothing to the dis- 
pensation of the Hebrew law. If He simply laid 
down principles of moral restriction without giv- 
ing man the capacity for realizing them He would 
be much more distressing that Buddha, Confucius 
or Mohammed, for His standard of moral perfection 
is infinitely more exalted than theirs. But our dear 
Jesus knew human nature so well. Therefore He 
did not draw men to purity (as medical science 
in its mercy might do) by dilating upon the hor- 
rible physical effects of sensual indulgence. Such 
treatment of moral perversion is not the radical 
remedy. The onward impetuosity of animal pas- 
sion is too strong even for the knowledge of this 
fact. Likewise useless are theories of heredity. 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 155 

temperament, natural virtue and philosophy when 
one constructed of flesh and blood stands face to 
face with a strenuous temptation. 

The unclean spirit cries out: "Let us alone, 
what have we to do with Thee, Jesus of Naza- 
reth? " If Christ, then, with overwhelming self- 
assertiveness placed before the world such a 
strict norm of morality, how then could He believe 
it to be attainable by helpless nature unless He 
Himself regenerated nature and bequeathed to it 
a new life of grace? According to Catholic dogma 
this He has done, and in this lies the relation be- 
tween the mystery of the Incarnation and the 
source of Christian morality. To him who is a 
believer that Christ is divine and assumed human 
nature to heal it and lift it to a higher moral 
level — to him the assertion : " that it is impossi- 
ble to be chaste " is nothing less than blas- 
phemy. 

The Divine Master of moral life makes light 
of no temptation which befalls man, for although 
sinless. He, Purity itself, had suffered the humil- 
iation of not the moral, but the more subtle and 
intellectual attacks of the powers of evil. He 
takes human nature as he finds it, naked, lone 
and hungry. He nourishes it and breathes into 
it His own warm life, as some tender-hearted 
woman might, when stirred by pity, suckle to 
her bosom some sickly and abandoned child of 
moral misfortune. 

If the higher power of God had not entered 



156 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

into nature through the Incarnation and trans- 
formed and energized it, all the moral principles 
of Christ would be as so much sublime philosophy, 
but of no more practical value to tempted human- 
ity than the treatises of Cicero or Seneca. God In- 
carnate is the quickening and sustaining power 
in us, of which St. Paul was constantly writing and 
preaching. It is this inseparable reality and living 
presence of the Holy Spirit of God in the soul of 
man which make it possible for him to cry out in 
the face of repeated moral failures and seeming de- 
feat : "I can do all through Him Who strengtheneth 
me." 

It is not extreme, or the result of hasty judg- 
ment, to assert that all theories or movements con- 
structed on the belief of self-perfectionism in 
nature, viz: that nature is self-sufficient to mor- 
ally support itself, that all these efforts have been 
proved ere now to be futile. The highest ex- 
pressions of morality which this our planet has 
ever known, were realized in the lives and Com- 
munion of the Saints of the Christian Church. 
They drained away their life blood upon the battle- 
field of the flesh. With whip and scourge and 
steel thongs and iron chains, they fought the 
body on its own ground, and the unclean spirits 
skulked away as they did when Christ exorcised 
the possessed man of Capharnaum. " Let us alone, 
what have we to do with Thee, Jesus of Naza- 
reth? " 

Considerably outside His own set of followers^ 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 157 

Christ has morally affected not only the sects of 
Christendom (which but partially represent His 
truth) but likewise indirectly the circles which do 
not acknowledge His claims. In spite of the de- 
pravity and insincerity of modern art, politics, law, 
literature and social life, the general desire is 
towards a pure standard of morality, even when 
it is not expressed in action and in speech. 

If the Eternal Light of Ideal Purity has poured 
its rays down upon humanity — nay, rather if " the 
King in all His beauty " has clothed Himself with 
our erring flesh as with a tattered garment and still 
remains " every inch a King," is there any feat of 
moral heroism which, through Christ, human na- 
ture cannot perform? Again from the crowd comes 
the piercing cry of the unclean spirit: "Let us 
alone, what have we to do with Thee, Jesus of 
Nazareth? " 

In proportion as we study and appreciate the 
economy of Christ's Sacramental union with na- 
ture, the more reasonable will be our motives in 
struggling for unalloyed purity in our private and 
domestic lives. We are left as prey to animal 
degradation when our faith is faint — when we 
doubt or when we are indifferent to or entirely 
forget the existence of an indwelling Divine Pres- 
ence in the soul of a frail and enfeebled humanity. 

As a Christian moralist, St. Paul was obliged 
to say to the lustful Corinthians : " Know ye not 
that your bodies are the members of Christ? " To 
violate the divine tabernacle of the delicately con- 



158 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

structed body, to thwart the natural issue of its 
laws, to physically abuse its prerogatives, is, in- 
deed, a sacrilegious act. O ! blessed be that integral 
form of Christianity as organized in Christ's liv- 
ing Church, which has safeguarded the rights of 
the body and saved the virtue of purity to the 
modern world. 

Blessed be that mouthpiece of Christ's Mind in 
modern history, which, in spite of the noise and 
tumult of this great world, has ever sung out the 
moral harmonies of the Incarnation, even to the 
very stars. The life of morality must be fed on the 
fruits of the Incarnation. We must draw to the 
service of our moral conduct the efficacy of the 
Sacraments, the cruel and humiliating discipline 
of the confessional, the frequent participation of 
Holy Communion for the sustentation of the spirit, 
the meditation on ideals as found in Scripture and 
spiritual reading, the gracious obedience to the 
laws and traditions of our holy Church of 
Rome. 

Furthermore on our own part, we must be se- 
vere and constant in our mortifications, faithful 
in prayer, vigilant over every flitting thought, tem- 
perate in meat and drink and fearful of unseemly 
occasions, both remote and proximate. We must 
likewise capture and consecrate the senses of the 
body, by the employment of the nobler arts in the 
cause of religion, by sculpture, painting, architec- 
ture, poetry, music, ritual and even the highest in 
the drama. 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 159 

Suffice it to say that with all these spiritual and 
aesthetic influences at our command and a strong 
faith in God as man, it will not be difficult for even 
youth to be chaste as the driven snow. But if we 
are indifferent to the supernatural gifts of the In- 
carnation the unclean spirit will remain with us 
and cry out from the synagogue of our shameful 
bodies : " Let us alone, what have we to do with 
Thee, Jesus of Nazareth?" 



THE MEDIATOR. 

" For there is one God and one Mediator of God and 
men, the man Christ Jesus." — 1 Timothy it 5. 

Christ is Mediator by the force of all the quali- 
ties of His Being. The ministry of His Mediation 
has its essence in His two natures, which are united 
in His one Personality. Divinely, Christ as the 
Son of God is one with the Infinite Deity. Humanly, 
as the Son of the Virgin according to the flesh, He 
participates in all the humiliation and weakness 
of our nature, excepting, of course, its sin. Thus 
He is the embodiment and living expression of the 
tie existing between earth and heaven. Before the 
eyes of humanity He is the historical confession 
that God looks to the salvation of the world. He is 
the expression in history of the Mind of God with 
regard to His creation; He is the instrument 
through which have come all the spiritual and 
supernatural gifts from God, the source of all grace. 
In God's sight He is the Ambassador representing 
man. 

Humanity is accidentallj'^ sinful and feeble; 
nevertheless, it can in union with Him be strength- 
ened. His Atonement, from the moment of His 
birth to His death upon the Gross, becomes meritori- 
ous for us, and we share in all the benefits of His 

160 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 161 

grace. His spirit is still given to us by His living 
Church and His Sacramental system, so that we 
can although weak, share in all the merits of His 
Gross. It is easy to see that man after the Fall could 
not restore himself to his original nature. This 
has been done for him by Jesus Christ, God and 
Man. This fact is startling, that the All-holy and 
Infinite God should have stooped and taken unto 
Himself flesh and blood to save humanity; to re- 
construct in it a new nature; to bring about terms 
of peace between the human and divine. But this 
tremendous truth is startling only because we do 
not understand the truths which lie still deeper. 
The economy of the Incarnation does not seem in- 
credible if immortality be a reality and if sin be 
everlasting in its horrible effects. The theory of 
grace which adjusts the ill-proportioned effects of 
moral evil in the world, becomes logical from the 
Incarnation wdth its benefits of the Atonement, in- 
tercession, the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and 
the faculty of the Sacraments to re-create and per- 
petuate the new life of grace. Even from the point 
of reason, when we study the nature of God philo- 
sophically, are we not provoked to come to the 
conclusion that the redemption of a race which 
somewhere and somehow revolted from the First 
and the Fairest is less a mystery than that God 
should have created this race, which has been the 
object of such overwhelming misfortune? 

But they who have once seen the beauty, the 
truth and the power of the Incarnation are able to 



162 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

look across the world, with all its tumult and con- 
fusion, to a country charged with the atmosphere of 
faith and love. They who have once grasped the 
entirety and magnificence of the economy of the 
Incarnation behold clearly the efficacy of Christ's 
death, the living power of His Holy Spirit ; the use- 
fulness of His Sacraments; the exalted ideals 
found in His Gospels; the divine origin of that or- 
ganization, the Holy Catholic Church. 



THE HIDDEN SECRETS OF THE SPIRIT. 

" The Spirit breatheth where He will, and thou hear- 
est His Voice, but thou knowest not whence He cometh 
and whither He goeth: so is everyone that is born of 
the Spirit."— JoAn Hi. 8. 

Sacred writ and mystical science are freighted 
with the fact that the Spirit works in secret. When 
Nicodemus slunk away in the secrecy of the night 
to find the secret of the second birth, Christ an- 
swered by making the secret more dark than ever. 
The wind whistled through the alleys of Jerusa- 
lem, it crept through the crevices of the house; yet 
the Jewish doctor knew not whence it came or 
whither it was going. After a fashion and in the 
same dark manner we behold in the infectious 
streets of the modern city, amid the din of com- 
merce and the cry of war, amid scenes of horror 
and misery and death — we behold from out of 
them all, glories yet to be fulfilled, though we have 
no evidence whatever, and much less a single argu- 
ment. But what of that? The very mystery of 
it all makes hope the livelier! Furthermore, 
neither the dreams of the Greek nor the Oriental 
satisfy. We must have the exalted visions of the 
Hebrew prophets to feed our hopes for the future. 
Whence do our hopes spring? " Thou hearest His 
Voice but thou knowest not whence He cometh and 

163 



164 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

whither He goeth.'* How apt is the Parable that 
the secret of the Spirit is like unto a treasure hid- 
den in a field. Look across the field of the world. 
Is it not covered with confusion? The husband- 
men are tilling and grubbing the earth for victuals. 
Seed falls by the wayside, and the birds of the air 
swoop down and carry it away. Seed blooms rich 
in fruitful promise, and the thorn chokes it and it 
dies. Seeds falls upon stony ground, and the sun 
scorches it and it withers away. Yet the harvest 
shall be white and bending low to clasp the reaper's 
scythe. What if cockle be found in the bundles of 
wheat? It shall be burnt and the wheat shall be 
gathered into barns. Our God is, indeed, a hidden 
God, in His world. " The Spirit breatheth where 
He will." 

It is again the story of the treasure hidden in a 
field. It is the prophet's scroll, a page of human 
history — a fold of the human heart. Though the 
tares should smother every blade of wheat, the field 
would be precious beyond goodly pearls, for below 
it there is hidden a secret treasure. Once the 
treasure is possessed it can buy the field, but some- 
how it is hidden. Let us plod and sweat and stum- 
ble about with pruning-hook and scythe and 
plough-share until we find it. Why should the 
treasure be hidden? Why should the gift be mys- 
terious? The answer is partial but reasonable. 
There is no merit without an effort, there is no 
love without a secret. " So is everyone that is born 
of the Spirit." We have a hope greater than 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 165 

paganism. We do not believe in Nepture or that 
he strikes the cave of iEolus. There is only One 
Who can let loose the secrets of the wind. " The 
Spirit breatheth w^here He will, and thou hearest 
His Voice, but thou knowest not whence He cometh 
and whither He goeth.'* 

The field of the world is of little value compared 
with the treasure that is hidden below. The world 
itself is of little value compared with the life that 
moves above and beneath. In the world no virtue/ 
exists which is not the fruit of the Spirit. In the 
field every ray of light, every lifeless stone, every 
breath of air, every grain of wheat is increased in 
worth, a hundred fold, because of the hidden treas- 
ure. Oh! give us the mystics and the hermits, the 
dreamers and the seers, who sing that there is to be 
a fuller outpouring of the Spirit across the field of 
the world. Give us the rare spirits who see the 
hour when the treasure shall no longer be hidden, 
but shall be opened to show jewels so precious 
while the world has not dreamed of them. " So is 
everyone who is born of the Spirit." 

Our duty is plain. It is to open out our hearts 
to the Spirit's influence as a vine-leaf to the drops 
of the dew. It is so to construct the end of all 
spiritual science that nothing shall be done to ob- 
struct the Spirit's operations: to cease the multi- 
plication of devotions that touch but the border- 
land of the soul. To dig deep for the treasure that 
contains the source and fountain of all grace — the 
grace that consecrates the humblest flower that 



166 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

blossoms in the field. Within, the Holy Spirit; 
without, the Eucharist. Within, the Holy Ghost 
— the Author of grace, the Sanctifier; without, 
Jesus Christ — the Minister of grace, the Redeemer. 
The synthesis makes the perfect man. " So every- 
one who is born of the Spirit." 

Those that know the men and women of today 
must think our hopes unfounded. Yet with wider 
intelligence and fuller liberty, who can tell what 
man can do. In the words of the contemplative 
the Spirit speaks : " I have taught the prophets 
from the beginning, and even now I cease not to 
speak to all.'* Parliaments of men have decreed 
that America is wondrous in the progress of its 
ways, yet who could say that its spiritual life has 
kept pace with its material march? We are busy 
cultivating the field. We have forgotten the hid- 
den treasure. We are strengthening matter at the 
expense of spirit. We look in vain for one recluse 
— one ascetic. The blessed have not come to us. 
Listen in the marketplace and the chambers of 
exchange to the jingle of gold and of silver, the clat- 
ter of quotations in stock. We are a generation of 
money-getters and vulgarians. We build ships for 
conquest and houses for trade. Our weapons are 
checks and coin — brick and mortar, silks and per- 
fume. 

*' The Spirit breatheth where He will and 
thou hearest His Voice.*' Every movement 
for social reform, every impulse towards sweet 
religion, is charged with the Spirit's force. 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 167 

Heaven is stooping to kiss the earth, but where 
is the priest to bless the nuptial bond? The 
Spirit is crying upon the house-tops, along the 
wharves of the river, in crowded tenements, in dark 
factories, but who is the prophet — the Ezechiel, the 
Isaias, the Jeremias, to interpret the cry? We 
hear His moan in the wail of modern religious de- 
spair, in the shouts of the street preacher, in the 
Salvationist's hymn. Everywhere, everywhere, the 
Spirit without — the Spirit within, the Spirit every- 
where. The whole universe is God's field and the 
hidden treasure is His Spirit beneath it all. His 
Voice is in the flapping of the eagle's flight across 
the mountain — in the bleating of the ewe for her 
lamb, in the echo in the clefts of the rocks — in the 
roaring of the blast — in the rhythm of the planets, 
through boundless space — in the music of the An- 
gels. Christ's economy reveals the Eternal Spirit 
as the Omnipresent, the immediate Minister of 
Grace. His breath, as the wind, stirs up waves 
across the field of wheat, like the sea in storm. It 
sweeps across the field of man's mind, of man's 
will, of man's heart. He breathes new life into 
every drop of blood and particle of flesh that make 
up the living body of humanity. " The Spirit 
breatheth where He will, and thou hearest His 
Voice, but thou knowest not whence He cometh 
and whither He goeth; so is everyone that is born of 
the Spirit." 



THE LEAVEN IN THE LUMP OF MEAL. 

" The kingdom of heaven is like to leaven which a 
woman took and hid in three measures of meal until 
the whole was leavened." — Matt, xii. 33. 

Just at present I can find no more trenchant 
figure than the Parable of the Leaven to represent 
the processes of transformation that seem to be 
passing through the religious world. Even the least 
observing see these changes; but seeing them, they 
see them not, neither do they understand them. 
They are taking place at our very doors — within 
our hearts — for the Kingdom of God, the new life, 
is within. 

As the leaven is seething in the lump of meal, I 
believe I see beneath the fermentation of modern 
religious aspiration the leaven of God's Spirit, gen- 
erating a new life, which is giving a new form and 
a new nature to the mass of humanity. The leaven 
is leavening, probing, penetrating, pushing up and 
out into the three measures of meal, into three 
diiections: religiously, socially, individually. 

The last two divisions may be reduced to the first. 
They are at bottom religious. It has been denied, 
but it nevertheless seems true, that as of old so in 
the modern history of Europe, all the great strug- 
gles have been fundamentally religious. The most 

168 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 169 

popular among religious questions is that of Chris- 
tian Unity; but it has been mooted so much of late 
that we almost grow faint at the mention of it. 
This arises, not because we deem the subject un- 
important, but because we have seen it used as a 
peg for men of shallow habits of mind to hang 
their words upon, out of lack for other and sin- 
cerer thought. But it is the strongest expression of 
that fermentation which is stirring beneath the re- 
ligious mass. And there are choice spirits among 
us, who constrain us to believe that to gather to- 
gether the splintered sects of Christendom seems a 
dream which is not all a dream. Christ's pre- 

• 

eminent prayer, the songs of prophets, the aspira- 
tions of holy men throughout the modern world, 
provoke the conclusion that no mere negation in 
history could arouse such universal demonstration. 
Enthusiasm concerning it has become contagious, 
and, like all great problems, the many are waxing 
fervid about it, but few contribute much to its solu- 
tion — " seeing it, they see it not." It has become 
the fashion in lectures, speeches, essays, and even 
sermons, to deal in contrasts, to alarm by prophe- 
cies of war as against peace, to draw on popular 
sympathy by the accentuation of striking inequali- 
ties, as, for instance, the horrible contrast between 
the poverty of the poor and the wealth of the rich. 
Yet in all this, it would not be unfair to say that 
much of such eloquence is but sham and pretence. 
As for the union of Christendom, my human intel- 
ligence, my knowledge of history, assure me that 



170 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

it is not only impracticable but impossible. Yet 
it is in the nature of religious movements that 
oftentimes, like leaven, their workings are in se- 
cret and their agents led not so much by human 
wisdom as by Faith — so it may be with the ques- 
tion of Christian Unity. No light is being shed, but 
voices may be speaking in the darkness of the night. 
The woman in Christ's Parable hides the leaven 
in three measures of meal — it is buried deep down 
in the dough. Its operations are hidden; its results 
we see. We know that if certain hindrances are 
not placed, certain effects will follow from a cer- 
tain cause — the method of its workings we do not 
pretend to understand. So, too, it may be with the 
leaven underlying all modern religious vitality. It 
may be a latent principle secretly transforming the 
sodden mass of meal. It is a principle among 
scholastics that from corruption proceeds genera- 
tion. It is a principle in the physical world, and 
it occurs too in the realm of the spirit — from dark- 
ness light, from blood issue, from travail birth, 
from decay life. Timid souls are being frightened 
at the ruthless destruction of religious belief, but 
upon its ruins is being reared what would seem to 
be a wider structure ; upon the horizon is the glim- 
mering of a more crimson dawn, perhaps the ad- 
vent of some new era. The mass of dough is fer- 
menting. From that lump of sluggish, inert matter 
may come loaves of substantial bread. 

The greatest event that has happened to this 
planet arose from out of historical misfortune — 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 111 

upon the relics of decay. Greek culture had 
touched its acme and was on the wane. Rome had 
brought back captive the treasures that supple- 
mented the perfection of its own external civiliza- 
tion. Yet it has become a commonplace to describe 
the moral rottenness that lurked beneath these 
classic glories. Men said that the Fall of the 
Roman Empire meant that all was on the verge 
of dissolution; but it was then, at this most dis- 
tressing period of history, that Jesus Christ, the 
Leaven of the Nations, hid Himself in three meas- 
ures of meal — the three civilizations: Greek, 
Roman, Oriental — until the whole was leavened — 
the purification of the body politic of the world. 
History is repeating itself, and that which has hap- 
pened several times before may happen once again. 
Philosophers who weep over the present do not 
know history. They should shed their tears in 
churchyards, over the graves of the dead. It was 
from amid the debris of the fallen pillars and the 
broken arches of the temp'les of the gods that there 
loomed up the pathetic figure of Christ, a Teacher 
so divine that to speak of Him in connection with 
Buddha, Mohammed, or Confucius, seems like blas- 
phemy. 

Is our age religious? I cannot tell — I do not 
know. Yet of this am I convinced, that if it is 
not a religious age, it certainly is not irreligious. 
What is the meaning of this recent reaction against 
the glorification of science, except it be a dim 
recognition of the higher life which moves beneath 



172 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

and above the material bulk? Why have the most 
material scientists changed their complexion of 
mind in relation to religion? Why have they be- 
gun to appreciate so keenly its usefulness even 
while they deny its validity? The conversion of 
a great mind and the change of intellectual basis 
of a great thinker are mental transformations, 
which ought not to be made little of when studying 
religious problems. 

I fully realize that there are clouds in the reli- 
gious sky which are not lined with silver, and many 
more not tinged with roseate hue. At times there is 
the lightning's flash, the distant peal of thunder, 
and all the purple hills seem shrouded in infernal 
black. To reconcile some of the jarring Christian 
sects! — it would be as feasible to link a war-steed 
and dray-horse to a chariot and drive them across 
a battlefield, thick with wounded soldiers. I see, 
too, the tremendous gap between the grosser forms 
of materialism, and the higher things of the spirit. 
Christ's sublime dictum : ** Man lives not by bread 
alone," is denied. The sum and end of life is to 
shield man from the storm and the wind, the frost 
and the heat; from plague and pestilence, fire and 
water; to weave raiment and suckle infants, to plan 
bridges and build houses. Some years ago and, 
amid the applause of a multitude, the saints were 
dubbed as vermin, lice; and the bridal robes of 
perpetual chastity, the habiliments of night and 
death. In such a case and with such a crowd un- 
der the spell of an orator, applause is of little real 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 173 

worth, and the mad violence of his language proves 
the seething restlessness of doubt. The visage of 
doubt has become shrunken and dejected, the eyes 
hollow, as if peering into the mouth of a cavern. 
The shadows of death are chasing him to the brink 
of the grave, and his voice, full of melancholy, 
makes its act of faith, with the piercing cry : Reason 
says "perhaps;" Hope says "yes!" His follow- 
ing confession is tinged with tragic pathos : " In the 
night of darkness Hope sees a star, and listening 
Love hears the rustle of a wing." 

Almost all the high-class Agnostics see the in- 
dispensableness of religion to human life. The 
spirit must be fed on something, even more than 
the body! Everywhere the vehemence of religious 
discontent is intense. What more frequent than 
religious conventions, public controversy, missions, 
revivals, open-air meetings for prayer, street 
preaching, evangelical alliances? Ministers of dif- 
ferent denominations are taking each others' pul- 
pits, ministers of different denominations all tak- 
ing part in one and the same service, ministers 
of different denominations denying doctrines that, 
they have preached for years although in many 
of these acts there is radically a denial of the 
objective value of known dogmatic truth, al- 
though they may manifest the principle of 
the relativity of human knowledge; nevertheless 
they portend the nature and violence of religious 
dissatisfaction, and the widening out of religious 
sympathy. Religious investigation is not infre- 



174 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

quent even among the laity. Of course, those who 
are merged in business generally do not study 
religious questions, except as they affect the in- 
terests of business. Yet religious difficulties are 
naturally talked about in clubs and academies 
and wherever serious men are associated. In so- 
ciety it is not polite to provoke religious disputa- 
tion, yet religious opinions drop very glibly from 
the lips of the worldly-minded, and in the most 
frivolous gatherings. In the universities, where 
religion is oftentimes cold — sometimes dead — it 
is nevertheless used as a practical good, while it 
may be considered only an abstract good. 
This is no greater phenomenon than to find 
a student who admires Christianity, as being 
conducive to a high ethical standard of morality, 
yet who would do all in his power, because of some 
inherent personal prejudice, to oppose its extension 
and embodiment. 

As indicative of the spirit of inquiry in the 
science of religion, a new word has been coined to 
distinguish a fundamental idea : " Churchianity " 
as opposed to " Christianity." Curses are hurled at 
Churchianity — benedictions showered on Chris- 
tianity. Christ is applauded, the Church hissed. 
Declamations are filed against churches, creeds, 
and clericalism, because they shackle and choke 
the freedom and essence of religion. They are 
charged with having wrapped around the beau- 
teous body of religion a vesture woven of the 
human accretions of the centuries. Nevertheless 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 175 

religion is praised, sometimes exercised; but the- 
ology is attacked — attacked because it is considered 
to be the creation of ecclesiasticism : the expression 
of the minds of successive generations of priests 
and parsons. Nevertheless religion is respected, 
sometimes loved, but Scripture is discredited — dis- 
credited because of errors in history or geography 
or science. 

Yet the dominating intention in all this oppo- 
sition is to promote religion, but in a freer and 
fairer form. Men seek to safeguard the idea of re- 
ligion, yet, at times, will not admit the necessity 
of its concrete living embodiment. It is illogical, 
to be sure, but that such a distinction should be 
made at all betokens religious thought, and a crav- 
ing for change, transition, or upheaval. This crav- 
ing for something religious seems to me to give the 
reason v^hy a partial negative religion, why a 
moral system like Buddhism, could get a hearing 
at all in a country like ours. The appetite for the 
curious, the mystical, the occult, prompts emo- 
tional natures to listen and accept, just as if Chris- 
tianity did not possess for them every healthy reli- 
gious idea, every jewel of religious truth, and in 
a more precious setting. Similar reasons may be 
presented for the spread of Christian Science, 
Spiritualism, Faith-healing, Theosophy, Palmistry. 
Just where the diabolism in these beliefs begins and 
where deception ends, and what part hysteria plays 
over all, it is very difficult to determine. However, 
these weaknesses argue not the lack but the excess 



176 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

of faith. Doubt is the lack of faith, superstition its 
excess. Beliefs like these show the symptom of 
that fermentation, upheaving the torpid religious 
mass — it is the chemical reaction, so to speak, nec- 
essary for the leavening of the meal. From out of 
the heaviness and dulness, the sourness and stench, 
the kinks and bubbles in the lump of dough shall 
be quickened into life the sweet and wholesome 
bread of religion. So, too, is it unreasonable to 
hope that below this complex religious disturbance 
there is throbbing something more than human, an 
energy v^^hich it pleases me to call the new leaven 
in modern life? " The Kingdom of heaven is like 
to leaven which a woman took and hid in three 
measures of meal until the whole was leavened." 



THE DIVINE VOCATION OF THE AMERICAN 

REPUBLIC. 

" Expect the Lord and keep His way and He wJU 
exalt thee to inherit the land." — Psalm xxxvi. 34. 

Though my country be only a spot where Prov- 
idence has placed me to do the most that I can for 
humanity, nevertheless it is dear to me for another 
reason. It is an object of sentiment; it prompts 
the affections of my heart as deeply as do the re- 
membrances of those who are bound to me by the 
strong ties of blood. There is a divine purpose be- 
neath every mood of emotion. Love of country, love 
of home, love of kin are in their varying degrees but 
human and personal loves, yet they control very 
largely the issues of history. 

But doubly dear to me is my country if I believe 
or hope that she has a special mission to extend 
Christ's kingdom across the face of the earth. She 
becomes lovable beyond expression if the feel- 
ing comes to me that she has a sacred vocation 
among the nations. Yet every nation has been or is 
possessed more or less with the same idea. Im- 
partial students of history, however, know beyond 
doubt that not only nations but whole races are no 

177 



178 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

longer destined to play heroic parts in the world's 
future drama. 

How strange are Providential workings! Time 
was when Spain covered the seas with her ships 
of commerce; when from her realm there rose 
troops of saints and heroes, artists and poets, 
soldiers and statesmen; and now there are none so 
low as to do her reverence. Her decay begins with 
the dawn of the eighteenth century, while two cen- 
turies before that — in the period of romance and 
chivalry — her Flower of Castile shed her jewels to 
reveal to Europe the vision of a new world. Spain's 
golden era was in the reign of Charles V., her deca- 
dence begins with the Bourbon dynasty. For the 
last two centuries the deep interior Catholic spirit 
which once characterized her has been losing its 
vitality, and in high places her holy religion has 
become merely external and official. Yet the power 
that lurks beneath religion and the craving for re- 
ligion has saved her people to the faith. 

Along with this spiritual degeneracy has come 
the waning of her material splendor. Suffering 
anaemia within, she sought aid by drawing blood 
from without. She taxed her possessions beyond 
measure. She intimidated her peoples. Her of- 
ficials became venal, and some of her clergy the 
victims of the state. 

To speak of the defects of one race at the ex- 
pense of the other argues a lack of the philosophic 
spirit. Nations as well as men fulfil their ends in 
human life; then die and are confined to the tomb. 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 179 

It would be a vulgar national feeling which would 
provoke us to glory over a feeble foe; but if an in- 
spiration has possessed us that our Republic has a 
work to do, it v^ould be but false humility to deny 
it. The sun of a strange century is lifting itself 
upon the horizon. A new race with the mingled 
blood of Saxon and Gelt and Latin has risen up to 
adjust a new complication in history. Let us not 
sin against the light or deliver our trust into the 
hands of men, but into God's, The retention of 
the recently acquired fruits of conquest seems in- 
evitable if we are to complete the humanitarian 
purpose for which the higher spirits open out an 
unseemly war. Islands — some of them mere bar- 
ren rocks in the sea, others laden with fruitage and 
flower — seem to be honestly ours in the judgment 
of the world. 

Of old it was said of the Romans that they lusted 
for dominion. True as this may be. Heaven re- 
warded them for their civic virtues by converting 
their world-wide colonies into gardens of Christian 
civilization, it has a very weak parallelism in 
modern history in the example of the British Em- 
pire. With our inventive genius and political tem- 
per it is obvious that material amelioration would 
be shed upon every land that our hands could 
touch. But most of all can we breathe new life 
and inject new blood into millions of peoples who 
have lost the first fervor of the religion of their 
fathers. A thousand difficulties present them- 
selves. The horror of it ail is that perhaps in our 



180 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

country religious bigotry will be violently tempted 
to vent its spleen in vandalism worthy of bar- 
barians. The art treasures, the churches, paintings, 
jewels, mosaics, and sacred vessels must not be 
polluted by irreverent hands. Let us gently and 
prudently, if we must, separate State officialism 
from Church government, but let us revere as is 
becoming a liberal Christian nation every expres- 
sion and embodiment of religion. Most pathetic 
it is to see the England of today striving in her 
mediaeval cathedrals to remove the whitewash from 
wondrous frescoes, and gathering together the 
fragments of rich stained-glass which religious 
bigotry shivered into a thousand pieces. It is 
good that at this moment we are distracted away 
from our internal problems. 

The very competition among the contending mis- 
sionary forces of the different Sects will evoke from 
our souls the desire to sacrifice ourselves in the 
name of that Church which has ever been the fruit- 
ful mother of heroes. Possibly in few countries 
of the world can you find a clergy so much like 
ours, leading lives of such holy freedom and high 
moral purpose. It is no reflection upon other coun- 
tries to believe that our methods for the propaga- 
tion of Christ's gospel are quicker, healthier, and 
more thorough. We are increasing so rapidly that 
we must soon have an outlet to spend our energies, 
else tepidity shall take hold of our spirits, as it has 
in many of the nations of Europe. 

Our leaders of state are men unskilled in the 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 181 

arts of diplomacy. Our country has had little 
intimate relationship with any foreign power. We 
are young and quite unused to the ways of the old 
world. The fear is that to hold our new position 
we shall be driven to create fresh armies and build 
strong ships, but this is the least part of the diffi- 
culty. The danger shall rather be when we lose 
the consciousness that our purpose in history is to 
effect the betterment of high and low types of races 
by imparting vigor to their religion and giving 
them the material benefits of our mechanical 
genius. 

O glorious mission for the Republic of these 
United States ! Again and again in history the scep- 
tre passes from Juda, and tribes which were chosen 
as divine instruments forget the fact and wander 
over the face of the earth. 

Our prayer to the God of nations must be that 
there shall come no strained relationship with our 
new and foreign friends. If we find it wise not to 
respect all land tenures, let us at least be not ruth- 
less in confiscation of Church and school proper- 
ties. We have much to learn from England in her 
treatment of India. English subjects are confined 
to penal servitude if they violate the sanctity of 
the temples of the natives. 

As Catholics we have nothing to fear from Prot- 
estant Boards of missions to our new countries. 
Wealth is the weakest power in missionary tac- 
tics. The warmth and glow and strength of Cathol- 
icism, so fitly represented in America, will as easily 



182 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

conquer not only those who are Catholic to the 
marrow of their bones, but likewise the Mongolian, 
the Negro, and the Malay. 

We cannot leave the Antilles and the Philippines, 
to be fought over and gobbled up by European 
kingdoms. Our love of those historic realities — 
liberty, progress, democracy — will not permit it. 
Of themeslves these peoples are helpless, without 
armor for protection and susceptible to internal 
revolution. 

It is easy to see how European Catholics, who 
are ever dreaming of their golden past, should 
from motives of sentimentalism sympathize with 
Spain, the last great Catholic kingdom. Students 
of history are likewise influenced in her favor when 
they remember how she pushed on civilization and 
broke the storm of Saracenic tyranny which threat- 
ened to darken the sky of Christendom. 

This last consideration affected to some small 
degree a few of our own public men, who could not 
be accused of lack of love of country. But the 
past is gone. Our duty is to construct new methods 
of usefulness for the future. 

There are social conditions utterly unlike our 
own which must be accepted for the present. There 
are historic privileges and vested rights which in 
strict justice may not be destroyed unless by full 
compensation. It must not be forgotten that 
Christianity is the greatest moral force in the 
world; that religion does infinitely more to dispel 
savagery and tyranny than bayonet and sword. Ex- 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 183 

cesses and abuses arising from land ownership, 
government grants, and public moneys can be 
remedied without poisoning religion, the well- 
spring of morality. 

Of course, as yet, the problem viewed from all 
points is insoluble; but eventually, with a due con- 
trol of all the facts and a reverence for the prin- 
ciples of justice which are intimately bound up 
with the facts, it will, let us hope, be brought to 
a happy and honorable solution. It will not be wise 
to dampen the ardor of missionary enterprise. The 
older countries recognize this fact in their treat- 
ment of even their smallest colonies — as instance 
the case of France with the isle of Madagascar. 

We have reasons to be apprehensive, for in our 
country, as in other countries, the fury of religious 
differences may be converted into political capital. 

The addition of millions of Catholics to the 
already millions who are children of the United 
States will in no way affect the even tenor of the 
present ways of Church or State. These new peo- 
ples are unconsciously pining for that untram- 
melled freedom which is the secret of the purity 
and success of the Catholic Church in the Republic 
of the United States. 



OUR REDEEMER'S LONELINESS. 

" Then He saith to them : * My soul is sorrowful, even 
unto death; stay you here and watch with Me.' " — Matt, 
xxvi. 38. 

That Peter should have succumbed to the temp- 
tation of falling asleep in the Garden of Geth- 
semane is more easily understood than the fact that 
John also fell asleep and left Christ alone to watch 
and pray in His agony. For John seems to have 
been a man who was undivided in his love — he was 
naturally lovable ; he had all the mysterious charm 
of virginity; he had felt the healing sweetness of 
the caress of Jesus; he had known many secrets, 
and he kept them; but he was like us — he was 
human; he fell asleep and left his Beloved to strug- 
gle alone with a terrific temptation. If John had 
been a woman he would have watched. Why? 
Because the women did watch in the other crises 
of the Passion. The French infidel, Renan, thinks 
that Christ craved their watchings. Of course He 
did. I do not know whether Renan was bad- 
minded or whether he was moved by the spirit of 
blasphemy. I do not know but he uttered a truth 
which is utterly independent of the morality of his 
private life, just as he divinized Christ in the 
very book with which he tried to prove that Christ 

184 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 185 

was only human. Yet the yearning that Jesus had 
for human sympathy must not be mistaken for the 
belief that He had permanently lost the conscious- 
ness of His Father's presence. 

Christ, when alone and lonely, sought the impet- 
uous affection of Peter, appreciated the virginal 
ardor of John, and accepted the refined luxury of 
feminine sympathy; yet, after having tasted the de- 
light of the greatest gift in human life, human love, 
He experienced the sensation that these delights do 
not suffice; and once again Jesus was alone and 
lonely, and had to fight His temptation alone. " My 
soul is sorrowful, even unto death; stay you here 
and watch with Me." No one must believe that 
we underestimate the value of human love when we 
say that it does not satisfy, when we say that we 
are still alone, and that nothing but the conscious- 
ness of God behind our loneliness can give us the 
strength to conquer the agony of Gethsemane. 

Christ was most alone when He shared the com- 
forts of human companionship. There came a 
time when these things failed to be of service to 
Him. In a trial He gave over His mother's love 
to John. There was an hour when He could no 
longer accept the gift of Magdalen washing His 
feet with her tears and wiping them with the 
tresses of her soft hair. Was not His death a grave 
scandal to the world and a proof of His aloneness 
before God? Was He not condemned by the voice 
of authority? Was He not stripped of every stitch 
of His raiment and stuck up between heaven and 



186 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

earth, with a criminal at either side of His cross, 
and a reclaimed harlot at its foot? Oh! oh! what 
a shocking scandal is the crucifixion of Christ! 
Christ, how lovable Thou art in Thy loneliness! 
When alone we find in Thee the tenderness of the 
woman, with the strength of a man. Thy teach- 
ing is the only doctrine to feed the loneliness of the 
intellect. Thine example helps us when secretly 
struggling with the sins of the will. Thy comeli- 
ness fills all the hidden hunger of our hearts. 
Christ, hoY^r dreadfully alone we would be if it were 
not for Thee — the highest manifestation of God! 
The favor of men, the love of child, the devotion 
of a faithful woman — these are not enough; we 
are alone — alone like Thyself with God. God and 
myself! How can I get rid of the idea of God in 
my loneliness any more than I can get rid of the 
idea of myself? God and myself! Two distinct 
ideas; a double consciousness that I am never 
alone in my loneliness. The things which the 
world holds dear did not tempt Jesus, but He 
sought the support of human help when He was 
alone. ** Then He saith to them : * My soul is sor- 
rowful, even unto death; stay you here and watch 
with Me.' " 

Wealth, with its securities from hunger and 
thirst, heat and cold, famine and plague, was not 
enough to tempt Jesus to convert the stones into 
bread. Nor could fame, even from the pinnacle of 
the temple of Jerusalem, look fair to Him. Glory 
is only a temptation to the insane, to weak minds 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 187 

and to little children, but some men are lunatics 
or little children all their lives. By a strange para- 
dox in history fame crowns only the brow of the 
genius who scorns it. 

Christ's temptation — and it was not all a temp- 
tation — seems to have been a desire for human 
love while His spirit was depressed. " Then He 
saith to them : * My soul is sorrowful even unto 
death; stay you here and watch with Me.' " How 
often is affection the stay of man's melancholy life ! 
We should not fear misinterpretation when we dis- 
course about it freely and holily. For a believer in 
Christ speaks of it not as Anacreon, the Greek 
poet, who forgot that the spirit shines through the 
senses of the body, while Plato made it the stuff of 
dreams and Dante beheld his blessed one standing 
upon the crest of a cloud. Human love is great, 
but God, Who is love, is not only greater, but 
greatest. Behind and beneath and above is the 
deep truth that God alone suflBces. Our hearts are 
restless until they are flooded with God. 

There is a lone line in the heart which the whole 
universe cannot fill. God alone can satisfy. He is 
our first beginning, our last end. Throughout the 
gamut of passion, from the most brutal and gross 
up to the most aesthetic form of love from there up 
to the most cultivated mental sympathy that ever 
existed is it not, in spite of its thrilling satisfaction, 
nevertheless unsatisfactory? We are alone, and 
there is something in us which cannot be shared 
with the one creature who may have entered the 



188 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

inner sanctuary of our being. What we want is 
God. God! No man is alone who loves God. If 
he feels that he is, then he is alone as Christ was; 
his loneliness is temporary, mental, subjective. 
That it is an effort for man to think of God does not 
take away from the value of this truth. I defy any 
man to lose honestly the consciousness of the 
Divine Presence in the bloodiest temptation ever 
waged in Gethsemane. 

Though I were given all the gifts that the world 
can give me, though all the nooks and crannies and 
crevices of my soul were most intimately pene- 
trated by the choicest spirit ever created, neverthe- 
less I would be alone, as I am alone, and as you are 
alone, when God vdthdraws His light. Man without 
God confesses that he is alone, confesses it even 
amid an embarrassment of human delights. Let 
love be strong as death, complete, unalloyed, aban- 
doned, uttermost in its intimacy, an entirely sur- 
render, yet when God stares at us in the eyes we are 
alone with Him. 

Are there not times when we are afraid to look 
into ourselves, to face squarely the mystery of our 
own being? Are there not times when we distract 
ourselves away from ourselves by change of excite- 
ment? Some can do it, because they have wealth; 
wealth is a tremendous force in human society. In- 
deed, a man does not know the strength of its con- 
trol until he has tasted the rigors of poverty. The 
scorn of the world is at times overpowering; yet its 
ridicule was nothing to Jesus. No man is great 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 189 

until he can honestly say, as Christ said, " I pray 
not for the world." 

Neither power, nor wealth, nor fame, nor love, 
nor all the things that this world considers sweet 
can feed the insatiable loneliness of man's soul for 
God. 

We have considered the gifts of the world; let 
us look away from this world, up to the sky, and 
see if there be gifts in the other planets to dispel 
the loneliness of our Gethsemane. 

There is a tradition that the moon was full and 
tranquil on the night when Jesus suffered in the 
Garden. Now, His Mind contained not only all the 
worlds of the physical universe, but He saw at a 
glance and in one instant all the moral evil perpe- 
trated in the past, in the present and in the future. 
Not only the sins of Babylon, Sodom, Gomorrah, 
London or Paris, but the sins that are to be com- 
mitted in this city tonight. 

The moon shone with chaste light, but it lent no 
solace to Jesus. For what is the moon after all but 
a scarred, burn-up planet, all shriveled like the 
withered hand of a hag! What is the moon but a 
token of the departed, like a lock of hair belonging 
to the dead! It has a certain beauty, to be sure; 
but it is the beauty of death, for death chastens and 
makes comely the features of the corpse. The 
moon gave no comfort to Jesus, no more than did 
the olive and the fig trees. Indeed, nature made 
Him more lonely, for nature is terribly silent. 
Studying nature, peering into the clouds, thinking 



190 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

of the immensity of space — these thoughts do but 
increase our loneliness and throw us back into 
communion with God. Here we are, a mass of 
scrambling humanity, building and brooding on 
this petty little planet. Consider the thousands 
and thousands of comets which have been found 
and which are being found very frequently. The 
stars, too, are something more than jewels stuck 
in the vault of heaven. There are the spiral star 
clusters, stars in a blaze, dark stars which have 
cooled down, white and bluish stars and fixed stars 
of the color of yellow. 

There are suns forty times brighter than our 
sun; larger and of greater heat than our sun; suns 
with red, blue and orange light. And every one 
of these suns has its own planetary system. What 
a stupendous and admirably splendid spectacle the 
sunsets of these planets must be! Our system, 
therefore, is neither the best nor the most brilliant. 
Then, again, what is beyond that line which marks 
the boundless space within which our system re- 
volves? What is beyond? I do not know. Does 
anybody know, except the Being Who is the active 
principle of all things? However, a plurality of 
other worlds and the countless number of beings 
who have gone before us, though they may increase 
our loneliness, they nevertheless cannot take away 
from us the consciousness that it is God's own Hand 
which drops the veil over our eyes in our Garden 
of Gethsemane. To some of us the veil may be over 
our eyes for only a moment; to some others half 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 191 

a lifetime; to some of us, forever, since we delib- 
erately keep it there with our own hands, in spite 
of the Divine Will. Every drop of grace in the 
whole universe flows from the Blood that trickled 
in Gethsemane. St. Jerome says : " God collects 
all histories of the worlds here and the worlds 
above us, and sums them all up in Jesus Christ.'* 
Palestine may be the centre of Judaism for the 
Hebrew; Rome the centre of Christendom for the 
Christian; but this earth is the centre of the world 
for all — the centre of our salvation. 

We cannot get rid of our loneliness by making 
use of the implements of this world or any other 
world. Our struggle is with ourselves, despising 
this world and other worlds and looking within for 
God. To sin against the light of this tremendous 
truth is a greater sin that the sin of despair, and 
despair is a great sin. It is a sin that is something 
more than a mistake. The great sin of human life 
is to be untrue to the conviction that God is with 
us, even in the Garden of Gethsemane. 

Plato, the pagan, regarded such sinners as crimi- 
nals of the State, and Dante, the poet, instituted a 
special region of hell for them. 



THE MODERN WOMAN AND CLOISTERED ' 

NUNS. 



** But Mary kept all these words pondering in her 
heart." — Luke ii, 19, 

He was a strategist, Ignatius Loyola, who, when 
he beheld authority being impugned, marshaled 
his forces toward the weak spot. His cohorts were 
to bleed for authority. At a command they must 
do. This Ignatian method could be reverently 
termed the exaggeration of the virtue of obedience 
to counteract the excesses of an historic vice, the 
denial of authority. 

That light-hearted spiritual genius of Assisi, ex- 
ploited a similar spirit, with his organized protest, 
against the glittering luxuries of the thirteenth cen- 
tury. The sordid indignities of poverty would off- 
set the illicit opulence of the king, the courtier and 
sometimes the prelate. When the coarse habit of 
this sanctified reformer was frayed and tattered, his 
disciples constrained him to slough it off, if for no 
other than for hygienic motives. After a perfervid 
disputation he consented, but in his sublime in- 
fatuation for the Lady Poverty, he took the patches 
from the old garment and sewed them on the new. 
It was the exaggeration of the virtue of holy pov- 

192 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 193 

erty as a counter-irritant to the prodigality of that 
picturesque time. 

Now, breathes there a man with manner so un- 
gallant as to accentuate the contrast between the 
suffragette and the cloistered nun? Yet it were no 
rash deed to aver that if one is not a counter- 
irritant to the exaggeration of the other, one could 
be a saving complement of the other. The other 
could impair the defects of the one. The one could 
requite the insufficiencies of the other. The clois- 
tered nun might become a sociological necessity to 
adjust the suffragette to a novel situation, with 
which, at present, she seems out of joint. If per- 
chance, a philosopher should be so absurd as to 
fancy that the suffragette symbolizes a deordina- 
tion, then the nun being her complement could co- 
ordinate all that is wholesome in each estate to a 
common end. 

This would not be so much the curing of a vice 
by the exaggeration of a virtue as it might be the 
healing of an imperfection by the assertion of a 
quality. To be sure there is a prodigious dis- 
similarity between the exoteric publicity of a suf- 
fragette and the vestal privacy of a cloistered nun. 
The contrast is acute but the rights of the one do 
not overshadow the prerogative of the other. 

Shall we ever forget the romantic Victorian wom- 
an, sometimes found in fiction like Trollope's, 
who so gracefully swooned away at the sight of 
her ecstatic lover? Love was her life and so pro- 
foundly reacted on her frail body that smelling- 



194 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

salts were as imperative as victuals. We have ridi- 
culed the delicacy of that Victorian woman be- 
cause our women are rapidly returning to what 
Chesterton calls the coarse and candid women of 
the Elizabethan period. This vulgarity has ma- 
tured, in some measure, from a merciless mode of 
civilization which has thrust the tenderest shoots 
of feminine flowering into avocations which nor- 
mally belong to man. The promiscuous dealing of 
woman, who is naturally refined, with man, 
who is naturally a vulgarian, has demoralized 
the woman. Herein lurks the grim and black 
humor of woman suffrage. The romantic and 
aesthetic inferiority of the modern man has dragged 
woman so to the deeps that she is screaming for 
emotional and economic self-assertion. Is the 
vote an unction for so wide a wound? 

However, there are sedatives for ruffled neuro- 
logical conditions. Could the equable composure of 
a cloistered nun be an anodyne to the tense 
tumultous life of a suffragette? It must be more 
than a contrast. The Divine placidity of the one 
must tender a balm to the feverish spirit of the 
other. Perhaps there never was a riper era for the 
reassertion of the feminine contemplative ideal to 
counteract the ruthless and cruel waste of femi- 
nine activities, political and otherwise. 

St. Teresa, no mean mistress of the science of 
life, it was, who declared that more good is done by 
one minute of reciprocal contemplative communion 
of love, with God, than by the founding of fifty 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 195 

hospitals or even fifty churches. Is the suffragette, 
who in fine frenzy, discourses in the public square 
of more sociological value to the community than 
the cloistered nun, who under the wing of the 
Sacramental Presence chants her propitiatory and 
plaintive song, at midnight Matins, by way of atone- 
ment for the excesses of our imperfect life? It is 
but flippant to presume that her heart is narrow 
because it is cloistered. Indeed, it is wider than 
all the political systems of the world. For as she 
detached herself from the thraldom of the things 
of sense, her heart dilated and there was opened a 
larger horizon. It is not for the suffragette to 
judge her. She is the judge of her life as is the 
suffragette. 

The tremulous cry of a conductorette in the Sub- 
way or even the elegant chatter of a feminine gath- 
ering at a fashionable hotel betokens an over- 
wrought but doubtless necessary condition. But 
the mellow and cadenced artlessness of a nun's 
voice when intoning the Divine Office in the clois- 
ter chapel seems as natural as a bird singing in the 
tree or the cooing of a dove in the clefts of the 
rocks. 

It is a rigid verity that we cannot touch political 
pitch without being defiled. So the suffragette has 
lost not only poise, intuition, manner and distinc- 
tion but another grace, the voice soft and low, that 
most excellent thing in woman. Can the sacred 
silences of the cloister be the agency of atonement 
to stem the floods of vehement verbiage which 



196 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

threaten to inundate the region of sincere thought 
concerning the dignity of woman? 

The loose speech and lax method of ratiocination 
have not only a reference to Feminism but also to 
Prohibition and Socialism. That such modes of 
crooked belief have come into vogue is because we 
are still immature experimentalists. We have not 
as yet the perspective sense to look to the sharp 
realities. As for dispassionate, judicious thinking, 
we are standing on our heads and not on our 
heels. Oh! for the Homo simplex of the Romans, 
since now the female of the species is more com- 
plex and incompetent amongst the ruins in the 
realm of modern thought. 

Yet we are saved by the orisons of the righteous. 
They avail much. Cloistered nuns are women. 
Women are still parcel of the redemptive and sacri- 
ficial scheme which balances the world. By their 
stripes we are healed. They die for the many. If 
the suffragette shall close her eyes to this vision, 
the cloistered nun cannot, since it is the law of her 
life. She is therefore not a luxury but a profound 
social necessity for the feminine ideals of civili- 
zation. She is now, more than ever, a rod and a 
staff for the moral support of the suffragette. This 
is why the perfection of one finely heroic spirit is of 
infinitely more worth that the propagation of in- 
numerable ordinary types of the race. 

The fashionable, though charitable, society 
leader at the Waldorf and the militant suffragette 
storming the White House at Washington are of 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 197 

infinitely less worth as economic factors for 
amelioration than the cloistered nun kneeling erect 
in prayer before the Tabernacle. One is all fuss 
and feathers. She symbolizes the tempest in the 
tea-pot. But the cloistered nun represents the 
Divine Energy which wraps itself around our help- 
less world. 

Even the Romans, in their period of moral de- 
cline, never lost this womanly ideal. The standard 
of feminine morality ran low, but the discerning 
spirits insisted that the ideal at least must be held 
on high. Thus, the vestal virgin plighted her vow 
of inviolate chastity for one year. Her life was of 
reparation and possessed all the esoteric exclusive- 
ness of a cloistered nun. She kept aloft the snowy 
banner of a noble ideal. If she violated her vow 
she was buried alive. So now, our goodly array of 
consecrated virgins, be they Teresian contem- 
platives. Poor Clares or Nuns of the Precious Blood, 
are by atonement, propitiation, sacrifice, lending an 
ethical and economic value to the modern devices 
of the suffragette. 



ST. AGNES, A TYPE AND CONTRAST. 

"When I had a Httle passed by them, I found Him 
Whom my soul loveth." — Canticles uL 4» 

When the whole world is plunged in tumult, it 
is diflBcult even to think with composure. One 
thought, however, is dominant with the serious at 
present. It is this — that what we called " pro- 
gress " — a word, meaning " the greatest happi- 
ness for the greatest number," is as far away from 
us as it was in the Middle Ages. 

It has always been clear, to many, that the fine 
arts have not developed since then: that, with us 
every phase of architecture is but an imperfect 
reflection of the past; that no paintings, reliefs, 
mosaics, no stained-glass, sculpture, no literature 
in the modern world, can bear comparison with 
the exalted creations of the past. However, in the 
domain of what we call material genius, we dis- 
covered a definite advance. But that very instru- 
ment which gave us heart of hope for, at least, the 
physical betterment of humanity, was converted 
into a means for the destruction of human life. 
Indeed, the course of civilization has been thrown 
back several centuries. We find ourselves encom- 
passed with all the moral weaknesses of the past 
— its barbarism and passion for destruction — ^with- 
out its virtues, its hidden moral beauty, its senti- 
ment and romance. 

198 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 199 

If in the aesthetic and material order we have fal- 
len far short of high standards and must revert to 
ancient ideals, this is eminently true in the region 
of morality. Is there one spot in this wide world, 
at the present moment, where the tenor of conduct 
seems in harmony with the Mind of the Founder of 
Christianity? Christianity is in a manner an ex- 
perimental science. It must be tried before we can 
judge of its results. " Taste and see that the 
Lord is sweet," are the words of the sacred writer. 
So we must react toward the past — to the golden 
visions that still loom on the horizon, for the eyes 
of faith — to the moral ideals ever ancient, ever new. 

This brings us to the truth that we must again 
turn our eyes to that Eternal City hard by the yellow 
Tiber — Rome — ^when sick at heart, looking for the 
things of peace and for the moral heroes and 
heroines that never die. The world is placed be- 
tween utter ruin and restoration of law, and there 
is nothing to restore it but the moral power of the 
Papacy. Time was when the voice from the watch 
tower in the capital of Christendom might have 
stilled the storm of this universal conflict which has 
shaken the whole world. That day is past but 
who shall say never to return? " All day long 
have I stretched forth mine arms to a foolish and 
gainsaying people but they would not." 

Yet if the living authority of authentic Chris- 
tianity cannot now, as of old, practically force itself 
upon a world which is already on fire with hatred, 
nevertheless its moral influence, principles, ideals 



200 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

cannot perish from the hearts of the faithful. It 
is to Rome then and to a heroine of the moral order 
that we come to learn a lesson and draw a con- 
trast. 

Rapt in imagination and with the light of love 
glistening in our eyes, we look toward the City of 
the ages. From the Porta Pia we follow the main 
road, the ancient Via Nomentana which crosses the 
broad Delia Regina. We pass beautiful villas until 
we come to the American Academy of Arts of 
Rome. On the left, about a quarter of a mile fur- 
ther, stand the Catacombs and the Church of St. 
Agnes Outside the Walls. Even now, it has not 
lost some of the evidences of an early Christian 
basilica. It was built by Constantine over the tomb 
of St. Agnes. It has been reerected and restored 
several times and finally by Pius IX. in 1856. In 
this church are blessed the lambs from whose 
wool the pallia are woven for the archbishops of 
Christendom. 

This church must not be confused with another 
church of St. Agnes, very rich and beautiful, within 
the confines of the city. The latter was built by 
Pope Innocent X. near the circus where our youth- 
ful virgin suffered martyrdom and exposure be- 
fore the populace. 

St. Jerome says in one of his letters of this re- 
splendent figure of inviolate chastity, that "the 
tongues and pens of all nations were employed in 
her praises. None is more praiseworthy than she, 
for whose praise all mouths are fitted." *' Her 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 201 

name," remarks St. Augustine in one of his ser- 
mons, "being interpreted, signifieth chaste in the 
Greek and a lamb in the Latin language." St. Am- 
brose fixes her cruel death at the age of twelve. St. 
Augustine at thirteen. Even though she may have 
been more mature than our women at the same 
age, the tender youth of her martyrdom has 
touched the heart of Christendom, from the 
fourth century to the present day. All agree 
on the youth of this virgin who won the martyr's 
crown. It is difficult to be precise about the time 
of her death. Prudentius makes it March in the 
year of Our Lord three hundred and three. 

Agnes' exceeding beauty and wealth provoked 
the young noblemen of the most distinguished 
families in Rome. She had but one answer: that 
her heart was consecrated to a Lover beheld not by 
mortal eyes. At that moment she could have sung 
snatches of the Canticle : " And when I had a little 
passed by them I found Him Whom my soul 
loveth," or as the verse in her Breviary lesson puts 
it : " He hath sealed me in my forehead that 1 may 
let in no other lover but Him." 

Beauty incites love, and Christ, the come- 
liest moral beauty, provokes the fairest love. Our 
virgin and martyr saw in Him all the strength of 
the man and the tenderness of the woman. Her 
words in the first antiphon of the third nocturn 
of her Office are : " I keep my troth to Him alone, at 
Whose beauty the sun and moon do wonder." 
Henceforward she was impregnable to the arts 



202 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

and importunities of her suitors. The bridal robes 
of perpetual chastity could never be for her the 
habiliments of night and of death. Unrequited de- 
sire when not perfected by restraint, may readily 
degenerate into violent wrath. So they who sought 
her hand in marriage and were refused, reported 
her to the Roman governor for a Christian. 

The poetic panegyric of Pope Damasus, however, 
tells us that after the imperial edict, not of Diocle- 
tian against the Christians, but after Decius, she 
voluntarily declared herself to be a Christian. She 
was dragged with clanging chains before the idols 
of the heathen shrine. One pinch of incense offered 
before so chaste a goddess as Diana would have 
saved her but, says St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, 
she could not be compelled to even move her hand 
except to sign herself with the Cross of Christ. 
Thrust into the fire, she gave no thought to the tor- 
ment of the flames, but sought to shield her chaste 
body, with her wealth of soft hair, from the lecher- 
ous eyes of the heathen mob. A foul cruelty it was ! 
Fire failed. They clothed her, however, for her 
execution and loaded her with fetters but St. 
Augustine avers that she went to the place of her 
death more cheerfully than other maidens go 
adorned to their nuptials. 

" I am wedded to the Lord of Angels — and His 
Blood is red on my cheeks." 

" You may," said she, " stain your sword with 
my blood, but you will never profane my body, it is 
consecrated to Christ." 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 203 

The faces of some in the crowd turned white 
when Agnes gave her tiny hands to the iron 
shackles and bent her tender neck for the stroke. 
Some of the spectators wept — she herself shed not 
a tear. She quailed not. The hand of her mur- 
derer trembled as though he were the criminal — 
but his aim was direct. With one blow he cut her 
head from her body. 

There is a lovely scene in one of the tragedies of 
the Greek poets — from the Hecuba of Euripides — 
which describes Polyxena*s warm body severed 
from the head and rolling down the marble steps 
of the altar and how, conscious even in death of 
her modesty, she decently arranges her snow-white 
raiment over her limbs. The blessed Agnes sings 
in Matins : " The Lord hath clothed me with a 
vesture of wrought gold and adorned me with a 
necklace of great price. The Lord hath 
clothed me with the garments of salvation and hath 
covered me with the robe of joyfulness and hath 
set on my head a crown as the crown of a bride. He 
hath put pearls beyond price in mine ears and hath 
crowned me with the bright blossoms of the eternal 
spring-time." 

St. Basil and Tertullian both witness that, during 
those early persecutions, Christ wonderfully inter- 
posed in defence of maidens who pledged their vir- 
tue to Him. Lewd profligates were seized with awe 
at the sight of them. So it was that a rude youth, 
who rushed at Agnes, was struck blind and fell 
trembling to the ground. The Holy One would not 



204 SERMONS IN' MINIATURE 

suffer His elect to see corruption. St. Cecilia so 
charged the air with the aroma of her moral .pres- 
ence that Valerian could no longer look upon her. 
Henry of Bavaria, Saint as well as King, closed his 
eyes and knelt a slave to the virtue of his Queen. 

Primitive and mediaeval Catholicism gave us 
thousands who retained, unprofaned, the consecrat- 
ing dew of baptism until the sweet chrism of 
anointing touched the pallid forehead of the dying. 
Even the senses of the body, so often the instru- 
ments of our humiliation, were won over to Christ. 

"From the graced decorum of the hair 

Even to the tingling, sweet 

Soles of the simple, earth-coniBding feet." 

Only at times does the modern mind know the 
merit and value of the ardor which is virginal — 
nor does it always appreciate a life of atonement 
and propitiation. Yet the ancient Romans, even 
in their period of moral decline, saw the sacredness 
of these blessed things. If the vestal virgin vio- 
lated her vow, which she was to keep for a brief 
time, she was buried alive. 

Some of the great efficient leaders of moral re- 
form in the Church, like St. Dominic, St. Francis 
or Ignatius sought to cure prevailing vice by what 
the world would call the exaggeration of virtue. 
It is on this principle that the ideal of inviolate 
chastity is so necessary for modern life. If at the 
breath of an obscene word a saint would swoon 
away, should we not be moved to tears not only at 
our lost innocence but at our recklessness of speech 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 205 

and action? It would seem that we lose something 
of the angelic virtue when we discuss it. Yet in our 
modern methods of education, matters are investi- 
gated and studied by all which should make the 
morally sensitive shudder with confusion. Modesty 
is only a special circumstance of chastity, yet it is 
its complement and unfading flower. So incidental 
a thing as a prevailing dance may indicate how our 
standards have relaxed. Even the harmless in- 
stinct to enhance beauty may bring about the mod- 
ern indignities of fashion. 

As in the past so in the present we look to types 
like Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Anastasia and 
Cecilia. What a tremendous contrast! If the 
standards are lowered with woman they will be 
lowered in a greater degree with man. " Ye are 
the salt of the earth and if the salt be lacking 
wherewith shall the earth be salted." "Yet the 
world can corrupt all things," says Lacordaire, 
" even so fair a thing as a woman." " Of all kinds 
of corruption," writes St. Francis de Sales, " the 
most malodorous is decaying lilies." To the gen- 
eral confusion which overshadows the region of 
thought, at present, woman has added another com- 
plex problem. She has thrust herself into the pub- 
lic conflicts of men. Into a game that is so rough 
that she will be helpless both by nature and grace, 
in mind and body. Joan of Arc, even when 
guarded by angelic influences, slept in her steel 
armor for she was dealing with men. After the 
crisis she returned to her home and to the sheep 



206 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

feeding on the green grass of Domremy. The 
modern woman must needs be thrice armed to 
meet the more subtle manipulations of political 
warfare. 

Because of unjust economic conditions, woman 
has been mercilessly pressed into mercantile pur- 
suits. Would it be an exaggeration to say, since 
all consider it an evil, that because of this she has 
lost something of the distinction of voice and man- 
ner always an indication of that delicate moral re- 
serve which is the source of woman's incomparable 
charm? When the great thinker, St. Thomas 
Aquinas, wrote that the devout sex was vix rationalis 
he did not mean that it was ir rationalis. He meant 
that it approaches the questions and sociological 
problems of life with the heart, rather than with 
the head. In the secret kingdom of that heart is 
born the power which redeems the world. Though 
the heart of a woman encompasses the world, its 
action is not public or external. Its influence is 
subtle, moral, interior. ** My heart was dilated," 
sings the Psalmist, " when I ran in the way of Thy 
Commandments." 

So we hark back again to Rome and to a Roman 
maiden whose heart was so enlarged by the love of 
Christ that it broke forth like a flower from the 
fetid atmosphere of the catacombs outside the 
Roman walls. It pushed itself up through the 
earth and the stones of the sacred city to bloom for 
us today and forever in the garden of the moral 
world. 



LOVE, MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. 

"What therefore God hath joined together, let not 
man put asunder." — Matt. xix. 6. 

It was the glory of Salvini*s Othello to interpret 
those finely modulated shades of Shakespeare's 
genius which are missed by mediocre performers. 
The revelation of Desdemona's seeming infidelity 
overwhelms the Moor of Venice with shattering 
despair. He is bent on her murder. He will not 
spill her blood for that would leave a scar on her 
skin whiter than snow and smoother than monu- 
mental alabaster. The light of the candle shines on 
his victim sleeping in her bed chamber in the cas- 
tle. At the vision of her excelling beauty he cries 
out in a paroxysm of grief; " It is the cause, it is 
the cause, my soul." 

This would mean that Othello, if he were to rea- 
son it out with a mind not crushed by his towering 
jealousy, would say to the chaste stars that he andi 
Desdemona are as nothing in the light of the flam-- 
ing fixity of the moral law. The constraining sub- ! 
tlety of his conscience compels him to reiterate the 
eternal character of the ordinance. The euphony 
of the Italian language and the richness of Salvini's 
voice, lent music to the mechancholy of his cry: 
" It is the cause." 

207 



208 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

It is the cause then or the authentic law as strong 
as granite in the eternal hills, which is the subject 
of our story. Upon that law dependeth the con- 
stancy of love, the Sacramental aspect of marriage 
and the erotic viciousness of divorce. 

When Othello asserts that he knows not where 
there is the Promethean heat to relume the light or 
to give vital growth to the plucked rose, it is but 
another fashion of declaring that Desdemona, by 
the violation of her vow, has upset a fixed prin- 
ciple for the right ordering of a fierce and allur- 
ing instinct. The Greek fatalists, as evidenced in 
their tragedies, saw the iron rigidity of that law 
even when they had nothing to soften or coordinate 
the wayward impulses of the passion itself. Mat- 
thew Arnold wrote a metrical translation of a 
choral ode of Sophocles which depicts this estab- 
lished ordinance which is begot not of man but of 
the gods. The minute before Othello smothers 
Desdemona to death, he kisses her on the lips, 
uttering with pathos the inexorable and everlasting 
nature of the covenant in the sublime verse : 

"Oh, balmy breath, that doth almost persuade 
Justice to break her sword." 

When King David, in his outburst of affliction, 
prays God to blot out his iniquity, he seems to put 
in abeyance not only the horrors of the ravishment 
of the woman, and the consequent disgrace of her 
spouse but also the loss of Absalom's filial love, the 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 209 

revolt of his soldiers and the disruption of his king- 
dom. For the moment the dominance of his peni- 
tential spirit is centred in the sorrow that his fall 
has struck at the Divinity of the moral law which 
is an adumbration of the Substance of the Divine 
Being in history and in life. The interior genius 
of the Hebrew language makes such a translation 
impossible but the verse of the sacred Psalm, even 
in English, reads: "To Thee only have I sinned 
and have done evil before Thee, that Thou mayest 
be justified in Thy words." 

It is the cause then, it is the steel-clad impreg- 
nability of a divine convention. It is as hard as 
flint in its application when viewed only with the 
eyes of unaided nature, but it is soft and yielding 
as moss in golden and verdant valleys, when be- 
held under Sacramental light. The supernatural 
interpretation of the Sacrament of Matrimony sig- 
nifies that that which is lacking in nature, is by 
a gracious participation in the Divine, supplied to 
lover and beloved. It is a moral strength which of 
themselves they could not possess. 

Theories of moral conduct built on self-per- 
fectionism, that is, that love can morally ^pport 
itself have proved ere now to be futile. This is the 
reason for the structure of the Sacramental system, 
which secures the fidelity of the marital estate and 
makes of divorce a mode of action applicable only 
for immorality. Is it not noticeable, that when the 
professor of free love falls in love he seals it with a 
personal, if not a public vow? 



210 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

It was in a picturesque region of our country and 
in a not far distant time that there loomed a fair 
woman who was flattered to the top of her bent by 
the appreciation of an Australian merchant of am- 
ple wealth. Both beauty and beast were married 
personages, each with children. The poetic figure 
is mixed because of confusion in locating, even in 
the final scene, which is the beauty and which the 
beast. Gradually there were endearing palliations 
termed elective affinity, soul-mates, psychical in- 
tuition and other things. But the attentions of 
our hero and heroine ripened and ripened to cor- 
ruption — like tainted fruit that falls from the tree. 
Their moral recklessness was compared to the 
crystalline ingenuousness of Dante's high and 
hopeless love. It was the perilous imaginative 
adolescence in distinction to the rugged reality of 
fact. Reason fleet footed fled, and truth with 
winged flight flew over the hills and far away. Pas- 
sion came out of the palace of the Furies and 
riotously ruled. In the lawlessness of such a moral 
tumult the State provided a livelihood for a corps 
of lawyers by legally interpreting the mad delirium 
of lechery as the exalted sentiment of love. The 
court then became the fertile mother and polite 
patroness of a tragic horror which increased in 
volume with the process of the years. Who can 
measure the width of demoralization brought to 
women and children in the disrupted homes of 
divorced parents? 

Our beautiful heroine was divorced from her 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 211 

husband and two children, to marry her rich 
paramour, who in turn was divorced from his wife 
and two children, to marry her. Some relic of the 
parental instinct remained when each asked for 
one child. This made the moral dissolution for the 
children more complete, for there lived one child of 
each parent in each house. The abnormality of the 
relationship of each parent necessarily reacted on 
the character of each child. Moreover, the diver- 
sity of religious belief deepened the ill-adjustment, 
for among the four parents, one was Episcopalian, 
the second Baptist, the other Catholic and the last 
in a religious sense nothing at all. In the Greek 
tragedies and the bloody dramas of Shakespeare, 
the innocent often bear the stripes of the malefac- 
tors. The blameless live to wince under the keen 
edge of infamy, bequeathed to them by the divorced 
and guilty dead. 

But illicit love cannot possess forever the serenity 
of the genial landscape. Hamlet in his sublime fury 
rushes at his incestuous mother, but the filial in- 
stinct holds him, when he realizes that she is 
already punished. She shall have no peace since 
her infatuation for the King is a passion which 
grows by what it feeds on. Shakespeare sees the 
canker in our nature. Hamlet cleaves his mother's 
heart in twain, with the statement : " Rebellious 
hell can'st mutine in a matron's bones." 

To revert to our domestic tragedy enacted not in 
Denmark or Venice or Florence, but under our own 
eyes — a tragedy which is an expression of a moral 



212 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

laxity, that even Tolstoi thought was making for 
our national enfeeblement — it was consummated 
for all in profound woe. The wealthy lover shot 
his second wife, believing her to have shown favor 
to his chauffeur. The chauffeur eager to shield 
the woman in the scrimmage was also shot. They 
lay prostrate on the path of the rose garden. The 
assassin glared at them as did Lanciotto at Paolo 
and Francesca da Rimini. He reloaded his re- 
volver, put its point to his head, fired and fell dead. 
The chauffeur lived to tender the ignominy of his 
ill-repute to his wife and children. The beautiful 
woman died in lingering agony. As the priest bent 
over her, for she was a Catholic, the surging tide of 
conscience came to the top and she openly con- 
fessed her remorse. Likewise the primal instinct 
of maternity asserted itself like good blood in reac- 
tion, and she implored the sight of the one child 
she had not seen for some years. 

The game was not worth the candle. The deso- 
lation consequent upon this inordinate emotion 
was the evidence that it was awry and out of joint 
with the purpose of the Divine Will. Its roots did 
not strike into the world of the invisible and the 
real. It was not that Sacramental love which is 
paradoxically deepened by misfortune, perfected in 
restraint and crowned in death. 

While Othello believes Desdemona to be incon- 
stant in wedlock and false as water to him, by lov- 
ing Cassio, all his frame shakes with his sobbing, 
yet he comforts himself with the creed that she 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 213 

must be destroyed to conserve the design and 
economy of the moral decree. Shakespeare's one 
line uttered by Salvini, with majestic grief, is sim- 
ply this : 

" Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men." 

This living law of morality, even in the splendor 
of heightened passion, is shown again in Brown- 
ing's stupendous tragedy — " The Ring and the 
Book." Caponsacchi's half earthly, half spiritiial 
fervor for Pompilia is safeguarded not only by the 
conventional law of Florence, but by the gentle 
though authoritative rebuke of Rome. Even with 
the highest mystics the criminal conceits of pas- 
sion must be balanced by the external norm of 
spiritual authority. The scamp Guido, the chaste 
Pompilia's husband dragged her from under her 
bed, where she hid, and stabbed her twenty-two 
times. Yet when sentenced to death by Innocent 
XII., he refers to the fact, though execrable as he is, 
that he has a wife and his appeal becomes : 

"Christ! Maria! God! 

Pompilia, will you let them murder me? " 

Chesterton thinks this is a splendid acknowledg- 
ment of an ancestral tradition, an ineradicable 
bond, in spite of dire incompatibility between 
man and wife. 

Some regard George Bernard Shaw, the satirist, 
as a moralist. How so elusive and inconoclastic a 
personality could be considered such, is beside the 
point of our discussion. If there is any sincere 



214 SERMONS TN MINIATURE 

purpose in the play of Candida it would be some- 
thing like this. Humanity is beguiled by the 
glamour of romance, which will make the lover 
behold Helen's beauty even in a brow of Egypt. 
To disabuse lovers of this lack of mental equilib- 
rium, which the pure pagan Plato called "insania 
furor," Shaw would turn an ancient ordinance up- 
side down. So in his " Plays Pleasant and Un- 
pleasant '* the cart often comes in before the horse, 
the mousetrap runs after the mouse and some of 
the puppets stand on their heads and try to place 
their feet in the stars. 

However, Candida recovers herself in time to ob- 
serve the absurd kink in her love-affair, with the 
poet who temporarily gratifies her aesthetic and 
romantic sense. She returns to her uninteresting 
husband whom she needs and by the law who needs 
her. Alas ! the amorous poet being a poet, does not 
turn a summersault from his frenzied heights to 
land on the rock of propriety and common sense. 
Nevertheless, he leaves Candida trusting that his 
love, like Dante's and Petrarch's, will be consum- 
mated somewhere in the skies. Shaw's cynicism is 
patent, but we are not so much concerned about 
it as we are at the phenomenon of his presuming 
upon the existence of a law, as old as civilization, 
always consistent in its operation and independ- 
ent of the individual lover and beloved. That 
Shaw should construct a play in keeping with the 
issue of this law is an astonishing situation for 
this apostle of moral confusion. 



ALL KINDS OF FISHES. 

" The kingdom of heaven is hke to a net cast into the 
sea and gathering together of all kinds of fishes." — Matt, 
xiii. kl. 

One night when wandering away from the town 
of Bognor, on the southern coast of England, I came 
upon the hut of a fisherman. The sea was very 
calm, the sky very beautiful; the fisherman's net 
was spread out on the shore; it had done its work 
for the day. The light was out, the fisherman was 
asleep. He too had done his work for the day. The 
whole scene seemed a picture of that blessed night 
of rest which is to come ; that hour when there will 
be no deordination anywhere in God's universe, 
either upon the sea or upon the shore, by water or 
by land. 

This is not today's picture in the Parable. The 
Fisherman is not asleep, but awake ; we have not the 
cool shadow of the night, but the lurid fervor of 
the day; the sky is not decked with stars, but heavy 
with clouds; the sea is not still, but ruffled; the net 
is not upon the shore, but in the sea. What a mar- 
vellous figure is Christ's Parable of the Net! The 
net is swamped below — is part of the sea; yet it 
retains its distinct nature — its own individuality. 
So does the Church, in relation to the world. Times 

215 



216 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

there have been in the Church's history when, to the 
careless eye, it would be hard to find; when the 
world seemed all sea and the Church a net that had 
lost its moorings, a net sunk into the deeps with its 
precious freight. But, somehow, with the stakes 
firmly rooted upon the shore, with the durable fibre 
of the net attached thereunto, with the strength of 
some invisible Hand, the captive fishes are slowly 
dragged to shore. This we must not forget. Ra- 
tionalist historians do not give sufficient natural 
causes to explain this historical fact. 

Is it, then, extreme to say that we of the present 
have lost confidence in the divinity that preserves 
our mission? 

Is it unsafe to say that what we call tempting 
Providence is but superstition and human fear? 

Is there anything irreverent in believing that we 
do not presume enough upon the Divine Power that 
is safeguarding the Church — the stake that binds 
the net unto the shore? 

The Church's principles are divinely protected. 
They are reflections of God's immutable nature. 
We have clinched every argument for their sup- 
port; they are expressions of the truth that shall 
live for ever, in spite of the buffeting of the fluct- 
uations of time. The essence of religion is safe. 
It is indelibly sealed upon the Church's constitu- 
tion by a stamp more impressive than man's. 
Christ's promise to the commonwealth of the 
Church is of no value unless it holds good today! 
Therefore we may broaden out methods of work. 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 217 

make them more elastic, adjust them to new sit- 
uations in modern thought, to new complications in 
modern history. Fishes are fishes ail the sea over, 
as men are the same everywhere in the world. Yet 
fishes divide themselves into finny tribes, as do men 
into nations and different tongues. Fishes take on 
the color of the flood that stirs above them. They 
are affected by the vegetation that grows in the 
caverns of the deep. So do men vary, in tempera- 
ment and racial characteristics. They are part of 
the institutions of their countries, they are even in- 
fluenced by climatic conditions. Likewise must it 
be with the Church — a net cast into the sea and 
gathering together of all kinds of fishes. The 
Church's methods for the placing and drawing of 
the net must perforce differ with different circum- 
stances. 



AT THE DEATH OF A GREAT AMERICAN. 

" Thou hast conducted Thy people like sheep, by the 
hand of Moses and Aaron." — Psalm Ixxui. 21. 

On an event so public and in so sacred a place 
as this, few words are best. They who are most 
sincere in paying tribute to the noble dead say 
least while their minds follow them to the king- 
dom which is not of this world. It is always licit 
by that law of God (through which there is neither 
Jew nor Gentile, bond nor free) to lend the fellow- 
ship of our private prayers to the goodly company 
of the dead. But more so is it becoming to remem- 
ber spiritually him (who under the working of 
Providence) gave service to a whole nation and in 
a more or less critical time. To stand with com- 
posure amid the cruel light and unmannerly speech 
of criticism (which is not always discriminating) 
may provoke admiration, but infinitely more im- 
pressive is it, to this thoughtless world, to have 
lived a life of domestic purity and to have crowned 
it with that supreme act of Christian abandonment 
to the Divine Will: "Not my will, but Thine be 
done." It was during the career of our Chief Magis- 
trate that there came to us (through the lawful 
representatives of the people's wish) a gift which 
it would now seem to be God's Design that we 
should keep. Of old it was said of the Romans that 

218 



SERMONS IN MINIATURE 219 

they lusted for dominion; be that as it may, Heaven 
rewarded them for their civic virtue by converting 
their world-wide possessions into fruitful gardens 
of Christian civilization. So, too, it may not be un- 
graceful to intimate that there is a divine vocation 
to the American Republic and we, its fortunate 
citizens, can, if the ideal be retained, elevate lower 
types of races by imparting to them the vigor of our 
holy religion and all the material benefits of our 
mechanical genius. It was while the silent dead 
lived that this mission came to our beloved country. 
He left us in a tragic and untimely manner, yet his 
national policy lives and what is more to the 
purpose of this discourse to teach, is, that his 
spirit, as of all men, is immortal. " But now Christ 
is risen from the dead, the first fruits of them that 
sleep. For by a man came death and by a man 
the resurrection of the dead. And as in Adam all 
die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive." 

To us believers in eternal life it is fitting that we 
regard not so much the genial personality of the 
man or the commercial prosperity of the nation 
during his administration, as the momentous truth 
that we, the living, can, either privately or publicly, 
be of spiritual service to the innumerable army of 
the faithful dead. 

It is, moreover, at a moment like this, when civic 
virtue should be most apparent. That word of 
music and of magic — "liberty" — can be uttered 
by lawless lips. If we, the adherents of Christian- 
ity, sleep too deeply our enemies may steal the 



220 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

Christian watchword liberty and incite the help- 
less and oppressed to violence and discontent. Ac- 
cording to the mind of Jesus Christ it is the truth 
which will make us free. Although liberty be dif- 
ficult to define it is nevertheless an historical reality 
and it is to the glory of this Republic of the West 
that it has played a large part in contributing the 
gift to humanity. Yet liberty among an unenlight- 
ened people is like a sharp instrument in the hands 
of a wilful child. All radical economic gifts should 
be balanced by the external norm of authority. 
Authority is not an end but a means to an end, yet 
as a constructive principle it must underlie the 
progressive operations of Church and State — of 
domestic and individual life. In times past the 
Church in social conflicts dealt with kings and 
thrones; her mission of peace now is with the 
people, for by them will salvation come to Israel. 
There are students who believe that the reasons for 
the endurance of our popular government are very 
few.* All Europe looks upon our country as a legis- 
lative experiment, which may succeed or fail. If 
a deed such as the one which brought us here 
this morning would provoke us for a moment to 
think so, our strong faith in God and in the sense 
of law in the hearts of the American people would 
compel us to believe otherwise. Therefore in the 
same breath with which we invoke peace on the 
ashes of the dead who served us well, we pray that 
the power of God may keep the Republic of these 
United States peaceful unto the end. 



THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE. 

" Again the kingdom of heaven is like to a merchant 
seeking good pearls, who when he found one pearl of 
great price went his way and sold all that he had and 
bought it." — Matt, xiii, 45, 46. 

Around us in common life there are spirits cease- 
lessly searching after the light — the Pearl of Great 
Price. There are men who cannot be satisfied with 
the ordinary things of life; men thoroughly sin- 
cere, who know as if by instinct that there must ex- 
ist some supreme good which can give a purpose 
and consistency to their lives. It is not intellectual 
pride, but earnestness that will provoke men to 
study questions which the multitude has never 
even dreamed of. The pearls which the mer- 
chant sought were mean and of little value in com- 
parison with the unique pearl of preeminent ex- 
cellence for which he spent a lifetime in finding. 

Nothing fills us with pity as the sight of a man 
who, having denied himself the legitimate pleasures 
of life, cannot, nevertheless, find the secret of his 
soul's contentment. Some of the choicest, noblest 
spirits of modern life are in such an intellectual and 
spiritual condition. This is a mystery, that Light so 
often inaccessible should not shed abroad Its rays 
upon the sincere, while many a man seemingly 
less worthy rests under Its effulgence; but "My 

221 



222 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

ways are not your ways, saith the Lord." When 
the merchant spent his years testing the good 
pearls it was not a waste of time. The senses of 
sight and touch were becoming keener until he 
had become a connoisseur in his profession. All 
the years of weary searching were a condition of 
the final discovery; all his years of trial were an 
education of his character for the last great sacri- 
fice. There is but one solution for such a spiritual 
difficulty : to rid ourselves of those illicit influences 
which hinder us from possessing the Pearl of Great 
Price, 



AS THE HART PANTETH. 

"As the hart panteth after the fountains of water, 
so my soul panteth after Thee, O God." — Psalm xlL 1. 

Some scholars believe that the author of this 
Psalm was a King, others that he was a Levite exiled 
in the mountains on the eastern coast of the Upper 
Jordan. Whatever be the truth this much is cer- 
tain, that his heart-hunger, as reflected in the pic- 
ture of a gazelle thirsting for water, is but a page of 
the history of every human heart. For, after all is 
told and every caprice gratified, there still yawns 
that immense void which can be filled only by an 
Infinite Object. We are famished in the midst of 
our feasting. What, then, is it that man yearns for 
but God? I crave God! I want neither book, nor 
church, nor dogma, nor symbol, nor rite, except as 
these are Christ's consecrated instruments in aid- 
ing me to possess God. They are but human means 
to a divine end — the possession of God. If Chris- 
tianity has deepened the hunger of the heart it has 
also furnished the Food through the medium of the 
Incarnation as vitally and historically expressed 
in the Eucharist. 

Man craves all he can of God and the highest in 
man. The consummation of love is union. The 
acme of Divine love is union with God. The final 

223 



224 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

cause of the Blessed Sacrament is union with God 
through Jesus Christ. No type, memory, figure or 
token can satisfy the overwhelming hunger of the 
heart of humanity. The Divine life of God must 
consume the human life of man. The union be- 
tween God and man is the closest possible. It can- 
not be more intimate even in Paradise, for the mode 
of union is the same, only here the effects are dif- 
ferent. To arrive at this personal union with God 
and consciously express it in our lives should be 
our constant endeavor. For such a spiritual con- 
dition the first act required is negative and consists 
in the purification of all relics of sin. The second 
operation is positive and has for its purpose the 
plunging of the soul into the sea of the Divine Life 
by the frequent reception of Holy Communion. 
Once the life of God is possessed it absorbs and 
impresses all our being, yet without suppressing 
our individual nature. Then the faculties of mere 
nature are rehabilitated into the new life of grace 
and far beyond their personal capacity. Their ex- 
ercise is turned toward things which only prophets 
can see and saints speak about. 



THE REASONABLENESS OF THE INCAR- 
NATION. 

"And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among 
as (and we saw His glory, the glory as it were, of the 
only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth." 
— John i. :/4. 

The Incarnation is the warrant of all the hopes 
of humanity. From it comes the efficacy of Christ's 
Death upon the Cross ; and the power of the Sacra- 
ments to create and sustain the supernatural life 
within us. From it also is derived the Divinity 
and strength of the Church of Christ. The mystery 
of the Incarnation is less a mystery than the mys- 
tery of the creation or the Redemption. If God be a 
Being of unsurpassed moral beauty, if time and im- 
mortality be realities, if the idea of sin be at vari- 
ance with the unparalleled sanctity of the Divine 
Mind, then the Incarnation is not only possible, but 
must be actual. 

We do not fully understand the Incarnation be- 
cause we do not understand the nature of God or 
the overwhelming malignity of sin. Moreover the 
Incarnation of the Blessed Son of God is the Revela- 
tion of the particular interest which God has in the 
work of His Hands. Likewise is the Incarnation the 
explanation of the mystery of the Fall, for Christ 
shows to us not what our race is, but what it was 

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226 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

capable of before it revolted from the First and the 
Fairest. Is this not enough to oblige us to accept 
the mystery, just as it is, without straining our 
minds to find the difficulties which surround it? 
So let us make an act of obedient faith to that 
Church which infallibly reflects the Mind and the 
Heart and Will of Him Who, though bone of our 
bone and flesh of our flesh, has lifted our fallen 
humanity so that it may participate again in the 
Divine Nature. 

Once the lesson of the Incarnation has been 
learned the trials of faith become less severe, the 
misfortunes of life become less horrible, and the 
whole world takes on an aspect which it did not 
have before. So it is a part of our duty not to em- 
barrass ourselves by speculative criticism, or by 
theories, when we can practically find a reason for 
struggling on with life at any cost whatsoever. 



THE PARABLE OF THE PATCHED GARMENT. 

"And He spoke also a similitude to them: That no 
man putteth a piece from a new garment upon an old 
garment; otherwise he both rendeth the new, and the 
piece taken from the new agreeth not with the old." 
—Luke V. 26. 

In the reading of this Parable a piece is cut out 
of a whole garment to patch a worn garment, with 
the disastrous consequence that it destroys the new 
garment and does not agree with the old. Both 
garments are therefore disfigured. 

Among many interpretations of the Parable of 
the Patched Garment the following will be the 
most practical for us. Christ does not patch a 
worn-out garment; He does not add anything to our 
weak and impoverished nature. The effect of His 
economy is deeper. He gives us a new robe, a 
new nature, a new birth, regeneration. 

Christ, as it were, says : " I am not come to patch 
up by a series of reformations and the decaying 
moral code as left by Moses, the great lawgiver." 

How often we find men — religious men — ^who are 
inconsistent yet nor hypocritical. The solution of 
such complex characters may be found in the 
Parable of the Patched Garment. The characters 
have lost unity; they have merely taken a patch 
from the garment of religion and stitched it on to 
their own unhallowed nature. How often are men 

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228 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

driven to God by some repentant shock after the 
commission of a grave sin. Yet it is the humilia- 
tion and personal remorse which drives them 
towards religion. Religion has never radically 
touched them. Divine grace has not thoroughly 
made itself felt in all their character. 

Men of the world who look out on this incon- 
sistency among religious men judge of religion by 
its results in particular cases whereas, in reality, 
religion has never thoroughly taken hold. Men may 
simply use a patch to cover up the revolting effects 
of their own nature. Men may do this in sin- 
cerity; they may do it unconsciously. 

There was a woman in the crowd who, when 
she saw Jesus passing, cried out : " Oh ! that I 
might touch the hem of His garment ! " There 
was a healing power in the four tassels that hung 
from His white and seamless robe. That desire 
of the woman to kiss the garment should be the 
desire of every believer in Christ. But it is like- 
wise within his power to possess that garment — 
the unpatched garment of regeneration. 



AN IDEAL FOR HUMAN IMITATION. 

" I came forth from the Father and am come into the 
world, again I leave the world and I go to the Father." 
— John xvU 28. 

This text, spoken by Christ, implies two state- 
ments. First His kinship with God or (if you 
will) His Divinity. Secondly, the vivid expression 
of that Divinity in the likeness of our sinful flesh 
and before the eyes of men. Our Christ is not 
merely a human Christ, but God also and the high- 
est in man. His Atonement for the sins of men has 
fully satisfied the Infinite Majesty of the Father, 
while His humanity has presented an Ideal which is 
capable of human imitation. Yet if Christ bids us 
to be imitators of His perfection. He does not mean 
that the capacity for so doing exists in our weak 
and sinful nature. Our capacity for imitating 
Christ comes from the indwelling Presence of 
Christ in the mind, heart and will of the regen- 
erated Christian. Christ as .the living Absolute 
Truth brings into captivity and obedience the mind 
of the true Christian and thenceforward the Church 
(as being the reflection of Christ's Mind) is un- 
conditionally obeyed. In this manner and through 
the grace of His indwelling Presence, He likewise 
gains control over and tames the will of the sincere 
Christian. Then, finally by the unutterable beauty 

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230 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

of His character, He captures the heart of man with 
all its moods of affection. 

This spiritual triumph of Christ over the interior 
being of humanity is much more wonderful and 
deep than the influence of His religion over the 
standards of art, literature, civics or social inter- 
course. Zealous lovers of Christianity ought to 
keep this in mind when they are fearful of the 
spread of modern unbelief and indifferentism. 

Christ's complete victory over the faculties of the 
soul of man is not a mere theory constructed by the 
subtle imaginations of men. It is the real and 
sweet experience of many devout disciples of Christ. 
If, as yet, we have not felt it we should seek those 
measures at the Church's command for its realiza- 
tion. It will lend much rest and comfort to the 
mind, heart and will and prepare us for that un- 
speakable life which is to come when we are dead. 



THE NATIVITY. 

" He was in the world and the world was made by 
Him and the world knew Him not." — John i. 10. 

It was a cloud above the Ark which manifested 
to the Israelites a definite manifestation of God. 
Now this would have drawn away the mind of man 
from the Spiritual Nature of God had not God willed 
to demonstrate His Presence in such a fashion that 
the Ark and the cloud above it would be a mere 
shadow of a coming historical substance. In the 
suburb of a Judean village, in the manger of a 
stable, hewn out from a limestone rock, was born 
of a Syrian maiden Jesus Christ, the Everlasting 
Redeemer of the world — Our God. 

To make such a statement in the face of the 
modern scientific world seems somewhat auda- 
cious, for it bespeaks the blending of two modes of 
being — ^the spiritual with the material, the 
humanly dependent with the Absolutely Divine. 
We have little inclination to discuss the serious 
subject as to how far the old civilizations con- 
founded the phenomena of nature with the Being 
of nature's God. We are the believers in the mys- 
tery of the Incarnate birth of Jesus Christ, the 
Eternal God. It is much more to our purpose, since 
we are the children of the dawning hopes of 

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232 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

humanity to venture an assertion that the Nativity 
was a new starting point in the sphere of human 
liberty and material progress. There is but one 
question for every individual : " Have I any distinct 
relationship with Him Who out of Everlasting Love 
for me clothed Himself with my erring flesh and 
assumed unto Himself the whole of the physical 
creation? " 



THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 

" In the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no 
evil for Thou art with me." — Psalm xxii. 4. 

How vastly different is the aspect of life when 
viewed in the light of death! It is told of St. 
Vincent de Paul, that he never went to sleep with- 
out preparing himself for death — so vividly did 
sleep remind him of death. 

The horror of death is a sensation common to 
the human race. For the Mohammedan death means 
annihilation. The choice spirits among the Pagans 
hoped rather than knew that the immaterial in 
man would survive the grave. The Hebrews, per- 
haps, had a closer knowledge of the mystery of 
death, but it remained for the believers in Christ 
to learn to look upon it with composure. Death 
has many sides. To one it is a cause of fear — to 
another, a cause of longing. To some even it has 
a joyful aspect, as we gather from the lives of the 
Saints — the chief servants of God. To some others, 
indeed, to most of us, it wears but a sad and tragic 
aspect. 

Death is sin's punishment overshadowing the 
world. To a believer in Christ, death may be 
serious, but it is never a cause of despair. 

It is impossible for us to tell how much physical 
pain there is in the action of death. The feeling 

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234 SERMONS IN MINIATURE 

of abandonment must be horrible at that moment 
when the spirit is severed from the body. The 
mental agony must be infinitely more depressing 
than the physical. The thought of death is not con- 
stant to us, because we are so largely plunged in 
affairs material — we are distracted by the senses 
— we are the creatures of sense impressions. This 
is how we account for the fact of our indifference 
to the mystery of death. It were wise to so dispose 
our lives that at the end we shall have no regrets 
or fears. The physical powers are so wasted when 
we are dying, that we cannot (except with grave 
difficulty) bring ourselves to think of the dread 
hereafter. While there is time let us enter seriously 
into the thought of it, for it is the entrance into 
our fuller life. If we do so now, then, when we 
are lying on our death-bed, the sense of abandon- 
ment will be lessened and our fears and regrets 
shall depart. We may even come to rejoice in the 
thought of death, or at least learn to view its 
horrors with composure as the Psalmist did : " In 
the midst of the shadow of death I will fear no evil 
for Thou art with me." 



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